Greens would scrap RCMP

Jeff Nagel - BC Local News Published: April 14, 2009 4:00 PM

The Green Party would scrap the RCMP in B.C. and replace it with a combination of a Metro Vancouver regional police force and a broader provincial police service. Leader Jane Sterk said the pledge stems from the need for a regional approach to gang violence and to impose greater accountability and civil oversight on the RCMP after high-profile fatalities in custody. "The deaths of Ian Bush and Robert Dziekanski are examples of recent failures to provide helpful enforcement services to the people of B.C.," she said as Greens launched their election campaign. She said those incidents demonstrated "behaviour the people of B.C. think is unacceptable" and that the practice of police investigating themselves must end. Liberal Solicitor General John van Dongen has said the government is open to considering police regionalization.

But the idea has been staunchly opposed by several Metro Vancouver mayors. "We're saying the status quo isn't good enough," Sterk said. "We need to find a strategy that's going to work." She said a new $80-million RCMP headquarters to be built in Surrey should be shelved since the RCMP contract expires in just three years. The NDP has pledged to investigate the feasibility of a regional police force for Metro Vancouver and it would reform the police complaint process to include the RCMP.