Using veto power

If you wanted to create an effective regional police force, you would not look at the unhealthy marriage of Victoria and Esquimalt for a model. This week’s decision by the Victoria Police Department to reassign its school-liaison officers shows the weakness of giving individual municipalities a veto over decisions.

Chief Del Manak asked for six new officers, but in March, Esquimalt council said no, and the proposal died. In order to make up the five officers in Victoria and one in Esquimalt, Manak is redeploying all three school liaison officers, one intelligence officer, one reserve constable and one community services officer to patrol and a new unit that will handle calls over the phone.

The decision brought such cries of pain from Esquimalt that one wonders if the chief was deliberately trying to stick it to the politicians who rejected his request. Schoolliaison officers are particularly valuable in the midst of the opioid crisis. Yet they were reassigned while the threeperson communications department was untouched.

Manak’s argument is that he has to choose the lesser evil, and he needs more patrol officers to serve a growing population in both municipalities.

Regional police services don’t have to work this way. In the West Shore, the officer in charge of the RCMP detachment consults municipalities and First Nations, but they don’t have veto power. Niagara’s regional police service answers to a board; its chief talks to mayors about their priorities, but, again, municipalities don’t get a veto. They get a bill.

They should be the model for the regional policing that Greater Victoria needs.