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The Leader-Post (Regina) DATE: 2005.11.19 EDITION: Final SECTION: City & Province PAGE: A6 BYLINE: Anne Kyle SOURCE: Leader-Post WORD COUNT: 368 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We need more officers: RCMP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Royal Canadian Mounted Police recognizes the need to recruit over the next five years to replace members retiring from the force, says Saskatchewan RCMP Insp. Bob Mills. Mills, who dismissed claims by Saskatchewan MP Garry Breitkreuz that the RCMP in Saskatchewan is short 44 officers, said the police service could always use more bodies. The Yorkton-Melville Conservative MP raised the issue of the shortage of police officers in the country, and in particular Saskatchewan, where the crime rate is above the national average, in the House of Commons earlier this week. "We have been really trying to press the federal government to increase the police presence on the street. Right now there are three to four times more criminal-code incidents per police officer in Saskatchewan than in many other parts of the country,'' Breitkreuz said, explaining there is a shortage of more than 1,000 RCMP officers across Canada. "Our police are spread out so thin that they can't even deal with the crime that is taking place in our communities.'' Mills said he suspects the numbers Breitkreuz was quoting reflects slippage. "The position is vacant because somebody has retired and it takes us a couple of months to identify somebody, get them promoted and get then transferred into that position. If you take a snapshot during that two- or three-month period you see a vacancy.'' "We do have vacancies because of funding, but that changes from one year to the next depending on how much money we get from the province,'' he said, noting the RCMP is probably more limited by its ability to get people trained and out in the field than by financial limitations. The province covers 70 per cent of the cost of provincial policing, with Ottawa picking up the remaining 30 per cent, Mills said, explaining the RCMP federal enforcement unit is paid for entirely out of the federal government purse. "We've made some pretty good gains over the last few years in terms of funding levels from the province. We buy as many bodies as we can with that money,'' he said. "But that is not to say we wouldn't like a lot more bodies.'' Justice Department spokesperson Debi McEwen said Ottawa hasn't refused any requests from Saskatchewan for additional RCMP members. "In mid-summer we submitted a request to Ottawa for the addition of two new RCMP positions as a result of additional funding we received through Project Hope,'' she said, noting that request is being processed. -------------------------------------------------------- BREITKREUZ LISTS RCMP
SHORTAGES IN SASKATCHEWAN: "Mr. Speaker, that answer
makes it quite obvious she is still denying the facts. Here are the facts.
Three towns in my own riding have unfulfilled requests. Our RCMP
sources say that currently, Saskatchewan has unfulfilled requests for
seven constables, 23 corporals, 14 sergeants, two staff sergeants and
one officer."
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