With a preferred ratio of one police officer per thousand people, St. Albert RCMP is running at around 80 per cent of full staffing.
Long term injuries, sickness—even positive events like maternity leave and paternity leave—all leave a footprint on staffing patterns. And in an era when recruiting challenges are undermining staffing efforts of all employers, law enforcement or other, a payroll cut to the bone doesn’t leave much room for keeping shifts covered.
St. Albert city councillor Ken Mackay is the council representative on the city’s policing committee and said he sees the number of RCMP staff every month ebb and flow, but this last dip is concerning.
“This is the first time we’ve been this low,” he said, citing a figure of 54 officers back in March.
“Obviously there are some concerns. It’s something we’re watching and that we’re aware of.”
The pressing issues—keeping the bad guys in jail and getting rid of repeat offenders—are always there, of course. There don’t seem to be any creeping statistics he can directly link to a lack of members, Mackay said. They’re still out on patrol, members are covering the shifts. Tickets, fines, arrests, patrols, all still ongoing.
“The crime types are still there, we’re still facing domestic violence and challenges with petty crime. There’s nothing that would be directly linked to lack of staffing, nothing I could point a finger at,” Mackay said.
“It would be very concerning if we didn’t have staff to cover. And I’d be much more concerned if the detachment commander wasn’t on top of it and wasn’t working on staffing to deal with shortages … (Insp. Ryan Comaniuk) certainly has identified it and flagged it and is working with K Division around making sure staffing concerns are addressed,” he said.
Known for family atmosphere and tranquil trails criss-crossing the botanical arts city, St. Albert’s crime rates have been low, historically speaking, Mackay said.
“We’re fortunate to live in a very safe community,” he said.
But during the COVID pandemic, the community saw a rise in domestic violence, and concerns around mental health impacts. Petty crime such as mailbox thefts seems to be on a bit of a rise; a recent rash of brazen thefts of catalytic converters from cars even on quiet residential streets is a reminder that no city is completely immune to the crime trends faced in neighbouring communities.
The 90/10 split with the feds
The province has a provincial contract with the RCMP to provide rural policing and for communities of under 5,000 people with a 70/30 split or even free in some instances, depending on the population and resources of the community.
The city of St. Albert provides 90 per cent of the cost and gets 10 per cent reimbursed by the federal government.
From a budget standpoint, there’s a strange silver lining of sorts: a staffing shortfall temporarily reduces the amount the city pays for policing from the budgeted amount. However, that amount is more than offset by the raise negotiated with the national force. A full staff complement would actually run the city over its current budget.
A recent RCMP pay hike and retroactive pay bump left St. Albert with an extra $3 million tab to cover adjustments that give constables a $20,000 raise and put their salaries into six figures.
Many of the province’s municipalities uttered a collective groan with the news.
“We have a budget, like every other municipality we’re impacted by their negotiated salary increase,” Mackay said. “We weren’t at the table, it would have been nice for the federal government to help us with some of our funding. We’ve been negotiating with our wallets, we weren’t at the table, we had no say in the negotiated contract. Not that we don’t think they’re deserving, but it’s challenging a lot of communities that weren’t budgeting for the increase,” Mackay said.
Running 20 constables low would technically, at least in the short run, reduces the city’s tab by something like $1.8 million a year.
But that is not the way to look at it, said Coun. Ken Mackay.
“It certainly is concerning. From a financial aspect, they only bill us for the number of officers working, but it certainly limits them, they have to make adjustments, they have to pull people off other duties (for coverage),” Mackay said.
“If we budgeted for 73 (members) and we’re being billed for 54, there’s going to be some savings, but that’s not how I want to achieve savings, by having fewer officers on the street,” he said.
“I wouldn’t want to save money that way. I wouldn’t want to risk safety for savings.”
Not critical, but working on it
RCMP Insp. Ryan Comaniuk is officer in charge of the St. Albert detachment and said the shortage at the St. Albert detachment has not reached emergency.
“In my opinion, the St. Albert detachment is nowhere near a critical level in terms of officers or resourcing levels,” Comaniuk said.
“In fact, I don’t anticipate any service disruptions at all, running a vacancy rate between 62 and 70 (members). It’s just an acceptable level and it accounts for our soft vacancy rate,” he said.
The established full time equivalent (FTE) number for the city is 70. The last quarterly bill the city received was for around 58 positions, he said.
“That’s the first time in two and a half years where we’ve dropped below 60,” he said.
New transfers in have taken care of two hard vacancies, he said.
The desired FTE is one officer per 1,000 in the community, as per the St. Albert long-term policing plan implemented by the city a number of years back, he said.
The 2022 population of St. Albert was around 71,500. Comaniuk’s putting in an ask for one more officer position this year, he said.
A look around the larger policing community shows the struggle to staff is a wider issue.
“I spoke recently with the Edmonton Police Service. They had a very, very difficult time filling two EPS recruit classes this spring. It’s not an RCMP problem, it’s a policing industry problem, in my view,” Comaniuk said.
Young people making career and education choices are more aware of the stresses involved in police work, and opting for less challenging fields, Comaniuk said.
“The job is more dangerous, the mental health impact on officers has become more obvious. There’s a lot more awareness of it,” he said. “People aren’t signing up.”
In fact, changing societal perspectives have employers from all employment streams scratching their heads.
“There is a bit of a supply chain concern right now, let’s just call it what it is—but again, that’s not just specific to policing,” Comaniuk said. “Recruitment and retention are not specifically a police challenge.”
“Young people have all kinds of options. The policing industry needs to start evolving to try and appeal to younger people. Part of that is showcasing the types of new programs we’re employing to support employees with mental health, work/life balance and equality, diversity and inclusion,” he said.
As an organization with branches in every region of most provinces (with the exception of Ontario and Quebec, which have their own provincial policing systems), the RCMP is listening to the next generation of prospective recruits, Comaniuk said.
“The RCMP are evolving as well, along with other policing services,” he said.
According to data from Alberta RCMP Recruiting, in the year ending March 31, 2023, the Alberta RCMP received 95 EPO Program application requests from external candidates. Of those 95 program requests, the Alberta RCMP processed 24 applications.
New recruits go through the RCMP’s national training program in Regina. From there, recruits work with their HR advisors, typically providing them with a wish list as to where they want to be posted—geography, demographics, urban vs. rural, big town or small hamlet. It’s not a la carte, but it’s different then 25 or even 15 years ago, when a staff advisor came knocking, telling an officer it was time for succession planning, for transfer to the next post, Comaniuk said.
While the organization is still quite based around mobility—and for some recruits, the ability to experience life in a range of locations has appeal—it’s no longer uncommon for officers to work in the same community for even 15 years, he said.
“I think the reality is because the organization’s recognized that it needs to be more accommodating and less of a paramilitary organization, officers have a lot more input and it seems to me today, more than ever, that’s a relationship. We are getting better at retention, and we’re able to bend with employees and make sure they’re working in community they want to work in and their family is comfortable and content,” he said.
