WHEREAS while policing agencies are moving towards integration of services to better respond to public safety and security needs, there has been no collaboration between levels of government federal, provincial and municipal to reform current models of policing; AND WHEREAS in addition to providing policing needs at a local level municipalities cannot sustain increased policing costs as a result of the demands of the integrated policing approach that is required today: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Union of BC Municipalities request that the Province and the federal government establish a task force with municipal police input to develop a model for a national unified police governance that will clearly identify the roles and funding responsibilities of each level of government and ensure a process that will work effectively and efficiently across the three levels of government.
MINISTRY OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND SOLICITOR GENERAL In recent years, it has been recognized that effective policing has been hampered by a police structure that has not changed in over 50 years. Police agencies have traditionally operated as stand alone agencies with limited sharing of information, resources and services. As a consequence, municipal, provincial and federal agencies have been working together to consolidate and integrate services. Some examples of this include PRIME, DNA analysis and witness protection program. It should be noted that despite the successes of the some of the integration initiatives, progress on other integrations have been very slow. In order to make policing more effective and efficient across the country, all agencies need to participate in these integration initiatives. The Province will continue to work with and consult local governments on integration initiatives through various mechanisms, e.g. lower mainland integration committees.
MINISTRY OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS Police jurisdiction and governance are important and complex issues, with significant implications for all levels of government and the entire police community. As you may be aware, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police CACP is proposing the development of a policy framework for integrated policing, which would involve a dialogue among all orders of government on such issues as capacity constraints, sharing of information and resources, inter-jurisdictional cooperation and integration, governance and funding. Departmental officials are working with the CACP and provincial and territorial partners to further explore this initiative.
FCM RESPONSE At its 2005 Annual Convention, the FCM adopted this resolution as a category A resolution, meaning that it is considered to be a national municipal issue of direct concern to Canadian municipalities.