Police chief to urge integration at national summit
Halifax Regional Police Chief Jean-Michel Blais says all options are open to discussion as he attends meetings in Ottawa designed to address the increasing cost of policing in Canada.
Blais is one of dozens of police chiefs, politicians from all levels of government and members of civilian oversight bodies who will attend the two-day national Summit on the Economics of Policing to look for ways to deal with Canada's newest crime-fighting crisis — money.
While national crime rates are falling, the cost of policing continues to climb and in some jurisdictions, the cost has doubled over the last 15 years. Municipalities are struggling to pay the bill.
Blais said he recognizes the problem that presents.
"We have to be looking at all possibilities when it comes to optimization of the policing dollar that we have here," he told CBC News.
Blais only had to walk a few metres from his old job as the Halifax Regional Municipality's top Mountie to become its police chief — Halifax is the only city in Canada patrolled by a municipal police force and the RCMP.
The offices for the city's two top cops sit side by side on the top floor of the police station on Gottingen Street. Blais is the first man to sit in both — he retired from the RCMP to become the municipal chief last year, taking over for Chief Frank Beazley.
Policing is a $92-million business in Halifax annually, if the criminals co-operate and everything goes according to budget.
In a city the size of the Halifax Regional Municipality, that doesn't always happen. There is chronic drug abuse, gun problems and in 2011, had the second highest homicide rate in the country per 100,000 people, according to Statistics Canada.
Blais said the city is a policing and budgeting challenge.
"It's larger than Prince Edward Island. It's slightly smaller than Toronto, yet it only has about an eighth of the population of Toronto," he said. "That makes policing expensive in of of itself."
The marriage between the RCMP and the Halifax Regional Police force came after a long courtship. It started in 1996 when the province amalgamated the municipalities that now make up the Halifax Regional Municipality.
Before that, the RCMP patrolled Halifax County while municipal forces served the old cities of Halifax, Dartmouth and Bedford.
The three municipal forces merged in 1996 to form the Halifax Regional Police force but by 2003, the RCMP and Halifax Regional Police were still in separate police bunkers. That's when major crime investigators from both sides began working side by side in one office.
Now, there is an integrated traffic unit that has RCMP and Halifax Regional Police officers driving each other's police cruisers. There is a joint communications system as well as other smaller combined units.
Blais conceded the merged service is not the cheapest, but said he believes it provides a better value for the dollar. That's the math he'll try to explain during a panel discussion at the federal summit in Ottawa.
