Amendments to the BC Policing Act another example of government overreach

Fort St. John city councillor Gord Klassen is concerned that the current amendments to the British Columbia Police Act being discussed in the Legislature will have unwanted repercussions for municipalities throughout the province.

Although the proposed changes to the Act are mainly due to the City of Surrey moving away from using the RCMP for their policing needs, and changing to a municipal force, Klassen said he’s “concerned about this just being another example of the province’s overreach, and putting their noses in places that they really shouldn’t.”

While many of the changes might seem innocuous, a few words here and there, by changing the intent of sections and subsections, they may have profound effects on local government autonomy. In addition to changing the wording of various sections, the government also proposes adding several new sections to the Act that cause concern.

Proposed new section 3.2 states the minister may issue orders imposing the means of providing policing in a municipality for several reasons, including if the minister “has decided under section 3.1 (2)(b) to reject the means by which the municipality proposes to provide policing and law enforcement.”

Section 3.1 states that a municipality must request permission from the minister, if it decides it wants to change its method of law enforcement – like Surrey has done. The proposed new section gives the minister the power to approve or reject the municipality’s choice. Subsection (2)(b) says the minister may “reject the means proposed by the municipality if the minister considers that the provision of policing and law enforcement by that proposed means would adversely affect the ability of the minister or municipality to fulfill their respective duties under sections 2 and 15(1).”

These sections outline the duties of the minister and municipalities to provide adequate policing services, to maintain law and order in municipalities British Columbia.

“It does have impacts on local autonomy and local governments’ ability, or right to make decisions regarding the police services they provide to their communities,” Klassen said.

The amendments would give the minister power to make these decisions – much like it has done with respect to Fort St. John’s OPS facility – regardless of the needs and desires of the residents of the municipality. The proposed changes apply to every municipality in the province, with a population of over 5,000.

“To me, sooner rather than later, we need to send some formal correspondence that clearly lays out our concerns over what this means to local government autonomy, and our right to make decisions based on what our voters want, what our services to our community need to be. So, I’d like us to respond to that, in some way by proactively sending some correspondence to the province, outlining our disagreement with where they’re going with this,” he said.

Council decided to send a letter from the mayor’s office to the relevant ministers with a copy to MLA Dan Davies.