Interests

Part 7: Pressure mounts on BC Liberal Government not to restore Auxiliary

Since the election of the BC Liberals, not much action has been taken on the Auxiliary Issue.

Immediately after the election and during the phase of government transition, there was a brief period where there were no government ministers in place. At this time the RCMP moved to revoke all badges from Auxiliary Constables that identified them as 'police'.

After initially pledging to halt the recall, newly installed BC Solicitor General Rich Coleman recanted and was convinced by his bureaucrats to allow the recall to continue. Many Auxiliary Constables viewed this as evidence the BC Liberals were not going to follow through on their election promises.

By the end of June 2001 it was clear that the BC Liberals were going to face obstacles in restoring the Auxiliary Police Program. Documents indicate pressure mounting from within the bureaucracy to; (1) maintain the highly restictive rules of the 'redefined program', (2) stress over blown liablity concerns to the new Solicitor General, (3) create a very high financial price tag for re-arming the Auxiliary, and (4) raise the amount of core training to extremely high levels.

In short the validity of the 1998 Auxiliary/Reserve Program Review was emphasized. The Solicitor General was told that the BC Association of Chiefs of Police endorsed the 1998 A/R report-review (and the two-tiered concept). and that the RCMP Commanding Officer, ‘E’ Division, concurred with report/concept and the resulting two-tiered training program.

Further tactics were used to dissuade the Solicitor General from carrying forth with plans to re-arm the Auxiliary.

The concerns of the BC Federation of Police Officers (BCFPO) were stressed. The BCFPO feels armed accompaniment is an activity which approximates professional law enforcement duties and constitutes cheap policing. In addition armed accompaniment places police officers, and the public, at risk.

Increased liability concerns were overemphasized. The 1998 Review made individual municipalities responsible for the actions of Auxiliary Constables just like those municipalities who have their own police force. This, it is suggested, may not be something municipalities want to assume. Other liability concerns being stressed to the Solicitor General included the high liability risk to citizen volunteers for civil suits as well as criminal sanctions as a consequence of inappropriate behaviour, especially if firearms are involved.

A tremendous increase to the Solicitor General’s Auxiliary/Reserve program budget was being outlined. If the Province wants to proceed with re-arming Auxiliaries, it will have to assume greater training costs and will result in an increase to the Auxiliary/Reserve Program budget from approx. $420,000 to between $1.75 and $2 million dollars for just training. Training costs include: the purchase of sidearms for the ceiling limit of 835 Auxiliary Constables the 1998 Review permits in British Columbia ($585,000), costs for associated hardware such as holsters, magazines, etc ($171,750), training costs for RCMP firearms instructors at overtime rates, minimum four days of training, accommodation and range costs (stimated by the RCMP to be in excess of $900,000), and the development of training curriculum/yearly costs to conduct testing/enforcing Tier 2 standards (138,000).

A tremendous increase to the content of the training program. Under the former program, para-professional Auxiliary Police officers were required to undertake a six month evening training program of 256 hours before being armed and operational. Training under the new program is being broken down as follows: Tier 1 standards - 92 hours. Tier 2 standards - 1,130 hours.

These factors have been combined with the RCMP's steadfast refusal to relent to the new government's stated plans.

In a written statement issued before she was to discuss auxiliaries with Coleman, RCMP Assistant Commissioner Beverley Busson insisted there was no need to re-arm the volunteer police. "The intended role of the auxiliary constable is to complement the police operations in the areas of crime prevention, public security and public safety," the statement said. "This is aptly and effectively accomplished without the need for our dedicated civilian volunteers to be armed with firearms."

By July, 2001 local newspaper editorials began to report on the pressures influencing the Solicitor General. Under the headline, "Guns are not the issue", one paper warned that...

There are several good reasons why you should be interested in the current debate over re-arming auxiliary police in B.C. and they have nothing to do with guns. Several questions need to be answered, beginning with how public policy is made in this province, and whether decisions that involve the public interest are truly being made with that in mind... How the matter is handled, by the police, the provincial government and its civil servants will bear very close watching, even if you couldn’t care less about volunteer cops carrying guns.

And in watching the matter closely, it is becoming apparent that the resolve to follow through on BC Liberal promises within the Solicitor General's Ministry may be waning.

On August 16th, 2001 the Auxiliary Issue is debated in the Legislature. At this time it appears the BC Liberals will keep their stated promises. During the budget debate on estimates for the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, the following exchange occurs...

B. Penner: I'd like to ask the minister for an update or status report on the Auxiliary Police Program in British Columbia. As the minister will know, the previous government made a decision to dramatically change the auxiliary police program in British Columbia, which had been the most successful program in the country. As a result of some of those changes, including disarming auxiliary police, we went from having between 1,100 and 1,200 auxiliary and/or reserve police officers in British Columbia to something around 500. That was a tremendous shame, in my view.

I note that the B.C. Liberal Party, in the most recent campaign, made a commitment to properly arm and train auxiliary police in the province and to restore that program. So I wonder if the minister can enlighten us as to what progress, if any, he's making and what the prognosis is for the auxiliary police program in the province.

Hon. R. Coleman: As the member knows, I debated this issue in the Legislature with him relative to auxiliary policing, which was an initiative by a former Attorney General, through his ministry, which saw fit to do this. In so doing, it opened a door for police agencies to change how they operated, and they grabbed it, to change how they would manage their auxiliary police forces in the province.

In my opinion it was an attack on the volunteer. It was an attack on people that had committed many hours and many years to helping their community police in this province to do a job. We all felt that at that time and continue to feel that. There are a number of issues now as we try to resurrect a program that has been gone for a long enough period of time, with the cost of the firearms that were disposed of or sold or moved off, with the cost of training, with the level of training. Those issues are all on the table.

I've made it very clear in my meetings with the RCMP that we intend to meet our commitment in the New Era document, that I want them to work with us on finding the solutions to their concerns and our concerns so that we can come up with an auxiliary force that works for British Columbians. We're going to continue to do that. They will continue at the same time with a community program on an auxiliary level for people that do not want to be in the armed portion of the police agencies, because there has been some success on the community volunteer side with policing in British Columbia.

I think there's a fit for certain people in the community that want to do community policing, bike patrols, that sort of thing, relative to their involvement with police agencies in their community. There's also a fit, in addition, to augment your provincial police force with people that are capable of backing up a police officer and reducing the stress on the front line relative to being alone. It's a huge issue in certain areas of the province, where you have small numbers of police officers who are taking care of large geographical areas without assistance from a lot of members. It's also a huge issue among certain people on the front line relative to who should be armed and how they should be armed and that sort of thing.

That's a challenge, but I do have a commitment. I made it very clear shortly after I became the Solicitor General. I do have a commitment by the assistant commissioner for E Division that we will work on a solution that will meet our new-era commitment and enhance auxiliary policing in British Columbia. I take that commitment at its value, at its word, and I will continue to work with that agency to find that long-term solution. That's something we plan to do. It's ongoing, as I've told members that have asked me. I think that we've actually made some progress relative to ideas on how we can handle it, and I think that we'll get there.

But by the beginning of 2002 the government's resolve to restore the Auxiliary Police evaporates. On March 6th, 2002 the following statements were made in the Legislature...

B. Penner: I've got a couple of areas I'd like to canvass with the minister. The first involves our commitment as a government to reinstitute a form of an armed auxiliary police program in British Columbia. I suspect it's taken longer than the minister hoped to get a new program off the ground. I wonder if the minister can bring us up to date with his efforts in that regard.

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, the auxiliary issue was not in the 90-day plan, so we do have time within our mandate to work this out. I looked at this program when I became the minister. I looked at the new community volunteer program that's being dealt with for auxiliaries and am actually in discussion with the member, who has a very successful one put together in Chilliwack that's working quite well for that community.

I've sat down with the commissioner of the RCMP and the deputy commissioner for E Division, which is British Columbia, and discussed this very issue about the level of training required in order to have somebody in the field with a firearm to basically know when they could use that firearm and what their powers were in and around it and also how we would build the infrastructure of policing long term to backfill and support our organizations.

Right now, we're looking at maintaining the community volunteer program as auxiliaries and then adding on another level, which we're actually referring to now as reserves. There is power under the RCMP Act for a reserve force to be constituted anywhere in Canada.

We're looking at a reserve force using former RCMP officers and former police officers, people who have a higher level of training through the Justice Institute or what have you to carry firearms to backfill and support our law enforcement community long term so we can build an infrastructure, so we can deal with seasonal policing and issues around the PNWER conference, for example, and the G-8. Those things are all going to be taking place, so if we can build a team of people behind our law enforcement, we can support them with not just one level of auxiliary but another level plus the existing police force.

B. Penner: Does the minister have any idea of when he'll be in a position to formally roll out this new program?

Hon. R. Coleman: It'll roll out as time permits. We have already started the work. The RCMP have been working on their end for a little while now. I'll probably be meeting with the commissioner and speaking to him now and again within the next month or so and see how it's going back east as far as what they need to do in order to put the structure in place. Because this idea sort of started in British Columbia, it may be something that they want to look at on a larger level. We'll sort of walk through a business plan that'll work for everyone, as we go through it.

So a BC Liberal Solicitor General states publicly that government no longer plans to re-arm Auxiliary Police, but instead create a force of part time police by hiring retired/former full time police officers.

This is not what the BC Liberal party promised in the election campaign.

Does this mean the BC Liberals will not re-arm the Auxiliary Police?

The struggle continues...

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