It's unlikely the St. Albert RCMP detachment's ongoing staffing issue will be addressed by receiving new recruits out of depot, acting officer in charge Staff Sgt. Dwayne Moore told city council last week.
For most of 2023, the local detachment has been operating on an officer vacancy rate of around 25 per cent. As of the end of September, the detachment's vacancy rate is about 24 per cent because 11 officers are on medical or parental leave, while another six positions remain unfilled. That vacancy rate increases to almost 30 per cent when accounting for the additional five hard vacancies that were created when council increased the RCMP's authorized force to 75 officers.
Moore, who has been the detachment's acting-officer in charge since commanding officer Insp. Ryan Comaniuk went on an extended leave of absence in early October, told council on Dec. 19 that despite the RCMP's overall recruitment numbers showing some signs of success, new recruits won't be assigned to a “prime posting like St. Albert.”
“We're probably not going to be getting any recruits out of depot, but recruiting has been doing an excellent job within this province and the numbers from what I heard ... have been triple what the expectations were,” Moore said. “That does help the City of St. Albert because these recruits will be going to areas ... mostly in northern Alberta or those types of locations, and then that will free up those members that are currently there and awaiting a backfill for them to now come down into a spot like St. Albert.”
“For those members who have been up there for their three-, four-, or five-year postings and that are due to come out, they're not really able to come out until they get somebody else to go in there, because there will be nobody left.”
Mayor Cathy Heron said she is pleased to hear that St. Albert was considered a “prime location,” and thinks St. Albert would be a good location for early career officers.
Increased number of assaults, car thefts
Besides providing council with an update on the detachment's staffing situation, Moore also presented the detachment's quarterly statistics for July to September of this year, as compared to the July to September numbers from 2022 .
According to the quarterly report, St. Albert RCMP saw significant increases in the number of assaults and car thefts compared to 2022.
There were 107 reported assaults, which is a 20 per cent increase from the 89 in 2022.
Car thefts are up 67 per cent this year compared to last, with 75 reports in 2023 between July and September, and just 45 over the same time period last year.
Other notable increases included in the report are a 16 per cent increase in the number of attempted or committed break and enters this year (74), and an 18 per cent increase in the number of reports of attempted or committed theft under $5,000 (360).
There was also a 54 per cent increase in the number of suspicious people or vehicle calls that the detachment received this year, 289, compared to the 188 recorded calls over last year.
While the report states many categories of crime saw increases this year compared to last, a few types of crime decreased, such as a 13 per cent decrease in instances of criminal harassment; a 25 per cent decrease in mischief events; and a 13 per cent decrease in the number of disturbing the peace calls.
Moore said the detachment is monitoring any trends, and if need be the local RCMP can use its crime reduction unit (CRU) to switch gears and focus on a specific type of crime.
“We're continuing to see the same type or similar crime, whether it's going to be stolen property or those types of things, and it's on the relatively minor end of crime that St. Albert has, compared to a number of other detachments that [the RCMP is] responsible for,” Moore said.
“With the analysts that we have here, we can start taking a look at those types of trends ... and over a period of time, we can then utilize our crime reduction unit, drugs section — whatever it happens to be where we see those crimes moving in a certain direction, we can start utilizing those resources to combat that.”
