The time to hang ‘em up comes for all of us. For some, it’s a slow-burning beacon in the distance, for others, a flash and a surprise left turn.
For St. Albert’s hometown top cop, a mix of both means that time is now.
Insp. Ryan Comaniuk has been thinking about his impending retirement and what comes after for about a year. As the calendar ticks over to 2025, he will attain 24 full years of service with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, allowing him to access a full pension without penalty.
He has stepped away from the command role, with Staff Sgt. Dwayne Moore stepping in until a permanent replacement is named. Comaniuk is currently serving Central Alberta RCMP in an administrative capacity since he recently re-aggravated an old injury.
“The doc decided to pull me off the road because I have to get this injury fixed,” he said Thursday morning. “It will allow the city to move forward with finding a permanent replacement for me because I was in the midst of retirement anyway.”
He’ll spend some banked vacation time before his official retirement date, sometime quite early in the New Year.
Comaniuk, who has a lot of policing and more than a little of St. Albert in his blood, took the reins in St. Albert Jan. 4, 2021. His father Ed Comaniuk retired from the St. Albert detachment as a staff sergeant after stints in Breton, Fort McMurray and elsewhere in the Capital Region. An uncle, Terry Shuttleworth, also achieved the rank of staff sergeant within K Division.
Comaniuk was in about Grade 8 when his family landed in St. Albert. He graduated from Paul Kane High School in 1990 and worked for the AGLC and the dairy division of a national grocery chain before he followed his father's footsteps in 1997, volunteering as an auxiliary constable with the St. Albert detachment. Two years later, he was invited to Depot to train as a cadet.
“I was drawn to the RCMP and what they stood for, the rich history and the reputation,” he told the Gazette in 2020. “That passion began to further fuel itself as I got into my late teens and 20s.”
The last four years
When Comaniuk took over this city’s detachment, he’d spent 10 years in similar roles but the Covid-19 pandemic put even that experience to the test. He remembered that period as a challenging time.
“It's been a bumpy road,” he said. “Looking back, the biggest challenge was getting enough officers.
“It's been an absolute grind, right? I mean, I was probably one of the more outspoken detachment commanders in the province saying, you know, 'we've got a serious problem here.’”
With what he called “unwavering support” from city council and the St. Albert Policing Committee, the detachment was able to secure funding for another five constable positions.
“So, to see all the new faces landing at St. Albert's detachment over the summer months and then through retirement planning and everything, I'm like, ‘You know what? Now's the right time to let someone else take this team to new heights,’ because this was the one and only thing that I've been laser-focused on for the last almost four years.”
The next four years
Comaniuk feels the detachment’s HR challenges are largely behind it. As a get-out-and-meet-them type, he’s glad to see pandemic-era restrictions in the rear-view mirror, too.
“If I could do it all again, I would probably try and push myself a little bit harder to get out and talk to people.
“I've always held the seniors demographic kind of close to my heart. And I feel like I regret that I didn't get out and spend more time with the seniors, some of the seniors’ lodges and so on, and just spending some time with more people. But it is a busy job.”
He looks forward to officers being able to return to some proactive community-based policing activities now there are enough of them to cover all the bases.
“So it’s increased visibility, proactive services, getting our officers in the schools, getting our officers on the road,” he said. “We’re going to see a noticeable difference in the community now that we've got enough officers.”
Comaniuk is the CEO of KwikBandit, a company that offers fastening solutions. He said he plans to work in the private sector after leaving the RCMP.
“I would go so far as to say I'm possibly looking at a transition to the energy sector,” he said. “I've got lots of irons in the fire, so it's a matter of trying to find something that I feel would be the best fit for me and my family.
“A lot of my colleagues that are, you know, in that 25-year mark and eligible to go to pension, some of them have a lot more gas in the tank and they can do another 10 and go to 35, and then others look for early departures and then opportunities outside of the RCMP. I guess I'd say I'm one of those.”
Protecting the innocent
The inspector said he would miss the people the most. He’s an acolyte of Sir Robert Peel, who founded the Metropolitan Police Force in London in 1829 and established a list of nine principles that officers can still draw upon today.
“I'm going to miss all the great city staff that I've worked with over the past almost four years,” he said. “It's a great group of people. The one (Peel) principle that I always centred my style of leadership around was that the police are the public and the public are the police.
“I felt that principle really resonated with me because everybody I worked with in St. Albert, they all shared the same common goal: to make sure that St. Albert was one of the safest communities in the country.
“This community is special to me. It always will be special.”
Recent violent incidents such as the shooting of three teens in a vehicle and the stabbing death of a 17-year-old girl highlight the need to focus on keeping young people and other members of vulnerable groups safe in their hometown, according to Comaniuk.
“It's been a particularly difficult year for the city of St. Albert,” he said. “It is a community issue. I certainly don't think the RCMP has all the tools to address that on their own. I can say that when I was at the last policing committee meeting, those conversations are already starting to take place, so I have a level of comfort leaving.
"Hopefully that will have a direct impact on seeing a reduction in crime that's targeting our youth. It’s a big issue to tackle, it's complex, but it's definitely going to be something that needs to be front and centre for the new detachment commander.”
