‘Community involvement is huge’
New commanding officer in Digby thrilled with return to the Maritimes
The new commanding officer of the RCMP’s Digby detachment says his main priorities are community involvement and good communication between police and local community groups.
Sgt. George Cameron, who started his new position with the Digby detachment Jan. 22, had previously been in Alberta, most recently with detachments in High Prairie and Fort McMurray.
Interviewed a couple of weeks after assuming his new post, he said he was settling in well and meeting people.
“It’s been really good here,” he said. “The folks in the town and the county have been nothing but really good to me, welcoming me to the community, and I look forward to working with all of them. And not that the folks out west were not like that, but I just find it’s a Maritime thing, right?"
He said a strong relationship between police and the community is important.
“I think community involvement is huge,” he said, “whether it be with service groups or the municipality, the town, First Nations, the African Nova Scotian community. I think those connections are (important) in any area, if you will. You’ve got to keep that line of communication open because we’re all living in the same part of the province, and anything we can do to work together to resolve issues is huge.”
He acknowledges it may be a case of building on what’s already happening.
“I know the members (of the Digby detachment) have been involved in the community here before I got on board, but, personally, that’s one of my goals ... to become involved in the community, even if it’s just going for coffee.”
He also said he’s a big supporter of the RCMP’s core values — honesty, integrity, professionalism, compassion, accountability and respect — and he says the members in Digby know these and practise them.
An Ontario native who grew up on Prince Edward Island, Cameron comes to Digby with more than 30 years of experience in policing. That includes 16 years of community policing, both in P.E.I. and Nova Scotia, before he joined the RCMP in 2001. His roles with the Mounties have included general duty, general investigation section and community policing.
Cameron was working for the RCMP in Fort McMurray at the time of the massive wildfire of 2016. As compelling as many of the images of the fire were, he said, in a sense, one had to be there to really appreciate what was happening.
He recalled the day Fort McMurray was evacuated, how impressed he was that people “were so calm exiting the city with flames on each side of them, hundreds of feet in the air.” He also was struck by how his fellow officers responded to the disaster. “And young members too,” he said. “I was very proud of them.”
As for his return to the Maritimes and his new position, he’s no stranger to the Digby area, having visited numerous times.
Meanwhile, getting back to the importance he places on working with the community, he invites local residents to “stop by the detachment.
The coffee is always on.”