Vanderhoof RCMP understaffed, overworked says town’s mayor

Vanderhoof is having trouble holding onto its police officers, the community’s mayor told a provincial government committee this week.

Speaking to the select standing committee on finance and government services, Gerry Thiessen said the town’s detachment is understaffed and overworked to the point where few stay longer than they have to. While the workload for a typical RCMP member in B.C. is 58 cases, Thiessen said the average caseload in Vanderhoof is 122.

“I talked to a young guy the other day,” Thiessen said.

“He really enjoys being a policeman but he just wants out of town. He says ‘my T4 is incredible because of all the overtime I’m getting, but I’m not getting a chance to have a life.’”

In the neighbourhood of six staff sergeants have passed through the town of about 4,500 people west of Prince George in the past six years and it’s reached the point where they no longer buy a home, Thiessen told the committee, which was in Prince George on Tuesday.

Asked why the workload in Vanderhoof is so heavy, Thiessen said the town is not only located near a major centre in Prince George but is a “sub hub” itself with Fraser Lake, Fort Fraser and seven First Nations communities in its vicinity.

Because Vanderhoof is small and out of the way, “we don’t get the funding” and he noted the detachment lost an RCMP officer to First Nations policing despite being told the position would be filled.

He contended strengthening policing in towns like his will help nip in the bud the trouble the Lower Mainland has with gang violence.

“I think there is a lack of understanding that where these young people come from is from small communities and they eventually migrate down to where more activity can happen.”

RCMP assistant commissioner Eric Stubbs has acknowledged the trouble the force has had attracting recruits to fill positions in the smaller communities. The RCMP is exploring the possibility of stationing members in regional centres like Prince George and then deploying them to outlying centres on an as-needed basis, Stubbs has said.

With his town heavily hit by the wildfires this summer, Thiessen also called for a return to “broadcast burning” – or controlled burning to get rid of debris before it becomes the source of a major blaze. He said the assessment for fire danger in the region was conducted at a time when “we had a green forest.”

“So you’re seeing loggers being asked to continue working even when it’s not safe to do so,” Thiessen said and added some have voluntarily stopped work to avoid sparking a fire.

He said there was a time when workers would go around with drip torches to burn out the debris and to prompt the pine cones to pop and re-seed the forest floor.

Although the practice produced smoke, Thiessen said it was nothing like what the area went through in August when it was so thick the streetlights remained on in the afternoon.

Prince George Mayor Lyn Hall also spoke to the committee about wildfires and urged an updating of the method used by Emergency Management B.C. to process evacuees. He said it’s currently paper based and takes 25 to 30 minutes per person to complete.

“This system needs to be automated, it needs to give us the opportunity to register quickly and renew quickly,” Hall said.

“The important piece to understand is if we continue to run the manual system, we will continue to have to tap into some 2,000 volunteers and staff people if we are expecting to provide the service that we really need to provide these folks.”

The committee is holding hearings across the province to gather advice on what should be included in the next provincial budget.

While the workload for a typical RCMP member in B.C. is 58 cases, Thiessen said the average case load in Vanderhoof is 122.