The Athabasca RCMP could use a few good men (and women).
Appearing before Athabasca town council last Tuesday, Sgt. Brian Scott said local officers are very busy.
According to Scott, the local detachment is currently operating with one less member than it had in 1991. Coupled with the fact that the town has grown in size and population since then, that means there are fewer RCMP members per resident today.
“We could definitely use some help, I won’t deny that. I don’t quite know how to put it in any other words,” he said. “Over time the town has grown, the county has grown, and the amount of traffic that goes through our area has grown.”
The government of Alberta currently funds nine positions in Athabasca, while the M.D. of Opportunity provides the funding for two ‘enhanced’ officers specifically for Calling Lake. Enhanced officers police a community, but they are also on call for other police departments in case of emergency.
Without the M.D. funding those two officers, the Athabasca department might be stretched even further.
Councillor Colleen Powell said she was against hiring enhanced police officers because it puts the burden of funding on the municipality as opposed to the province.
“I have an instinctive dislike of enhanced officers because we are allowing the provincial and federal government not to fund the police properly,” Powell stated.
The number of police officers is decided by the provincial government, and they go by the number of cases per RCMP member to determine the amount of officers a community requires.
“Right now our current detachment strength is at nine, and I’ll be completely honest with you: we cannot survive with nine people,” Scott said. “It’s just far too busy.”
Scott explained that being a rural detachment has its difficulties.
“I don’t have members sitting in my back pocket every two or three blocks. We are a rural detachment and we have a huge area to cover,” he said. “In a rural area, if I am in Rochester and a call comes in from Island Lake, I’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of me.
“I’ve been three-quarters of my way to a call, and another call comes in on the other end of the territory. You have to rate those by the level of priority. You have to address the more urgent matters.”
Scott has asked for joint funding from the Town of Athabasca and Athabasca County to allow the department to hire a secretarial position, which would free up his officers. Both the town and county have deferred the decision to their budget deliberations.
The local detachment relies on neighbouring departments already, according to Scott.
“I’ve requested assistance from Westlock, Boyle, Slave Lake, Two Hills and Eastern Alberta District to keep our office operating at some level of efficiency,” Scott explained. “The Boyle detachment is down staffed at the moment, and as a result a constable from my office has been working in Boyle.”
It’s been a busy couple of years for the local detachment. From the start of 2011 and up until Sept. 30 of this year, the detachment has responded to 2,300 calls; 860 of those calls were within town limits.
In the same time frame, the detachment has responded to 47 actual assaults, 16 actual break-and-enters, and 56 cases of theft, which Scott said is a little high.
“People are simply not taking precautions,” he said. “It’s simple common sense things that people could do to prevent a lot of this stuff, and they are not doing it.”
