Resolution could help cut surprise bills from RCMP

Currently, municipalities charged for big investigation.

By Sarah Simpson, The Citizen October 1, 2010

Rookie North Cowichan Councillor Al Siebring had a bit of a swagger to his step on Thursday after learning a resolution he's been championing had been passed unanimously by the Union of B.C. Municipalities. "My policing resolution, in spite of all odds, passed," said Siebring from Whistler, where he and other local politicians are attending the UBCM annual convention. "I'm pretty pumped about it." Siebring's resolution dealt with one-time costs for major criminal investigations.

Currently, local governments are subject to unexpected costs as a result of major criminal investigations involving RCMP resources drawn from outside their local jurisdictions.That doesn't sit right with Siebring, who brought the issue up with North Cowichan council months ago."We let him run with it," said North Cowichan Mayor Tom Walker, a half-hour after the resolution was passed. "He worked very hard."Historically, the Solicitor General's ministry would have picked up the extra cost of bringing in specialists from out of town.With the downloaded costs, the potential for disastrous consequences resulting from unforeseen bills and extremely tight budgets is too much for small towns to bear, Siebring argued.

"The resolution said in no uncertain terms that this kind of downloading is not going to be part of the new contract," Siebring said. "It's a really strong mandate from this convention to that negotiating team to say to the province and the feds and the RCMP, you know what, you cannot for example, send Port Coquitlam a bill for the Willie Pickton investigation, which in principle is what they were starting to do."
--------
Don Quixote Note: This is a the resolution from the UBCM Resolution Book:2010 UBCM Resolutions [PDF - 699 KB]
C10    RCMP CONTRACT COST DOWNLOADING    North Cowichan
WHEREAS local governments in British Columbia can now be subject to unexpected costs as a result of major criminal investigations involving RCMP resources drawn from outside their local jurisdictions;  AND WHEREAS these unexpected costs have the potential to create severe financial hardship for local governments;  AND WHEREAS the UBCM, on behalf of local governments across British Columbia, is currently negotiating with other orders of government to develop a new RCMP contract; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the UBCM give its RCMP contract negotiating committee a clear and unequivocal mandate to ensure that the new contract will explicitly assign to other orders of government all costs incurred for resources drawn from outside a local government’s jurisdiction in the normal course of any major criminal investigation.