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By LeRae Haynes

Cariboo residents are invited to a BC Civil Liberties Association workshop tomorrow at TRU to discuss RCMP services in northern communities. Before the province commits to another 20-year policing agreement with the RCMP, the BCCLA wants to know what people in the north think about the policing services they are receiving.

(Photo: David Eby, Executive Director of BC Civil Liberties Association will be facilitating a workshop tomorrow at TRU on what our community thinks about RCMP services.)

The team started today on a 14-day tour of 14 northern communities, with the first stop in Merritt. “We used to have Civil Liberties community groups across the province and are hoping to re-establish community groups and build up our northern contacts,” stated BCCLA Executive Director and workshop facilitator David Eby. “We chose the RCMP because of media coverage in northern communities on quite a few incidents.”

He said that one goal of the workshop is to re-establish BC Civil Liberties contacts in smaller, northern centres. “We also want to let people know that the province is currently negotiating the RCMP contract for another 20 years. This is the only public consultation that is taking place: we want to talk with people in small communities, get their feedback and get a sense of the policing service they’re getting from the RCMP,” he explained.

“We want to hear their issues and questions, and then we will put the positive and the negative information together in a report for the Solicitor General and the RCMP. This report will let them know what’s working well and what isn’t.

He said that one option on the table is having the RCMP transfer to a provincial entity instead of a federal one. “The BC government has commissioned a study to find out the cost and benefit to having a strictly provincial police force.

“Our official position is that we would benefit from having a provincial police force. The reason for this is that the RCMP is now accountable to the head of the RCMP in Ottawa on a national level. We think that it’s necessary to have RCMP policies and practices accountable to Victoria,” he continued. “We think that the ‘use of force’ policy, for example, should be the same, whether you’re RCMP or a municipal police force. Having it as one group would certainly lead to better communication.”

He said that there are two parts to the workshop. “There is a basic ‘know your rights’ session, where I go over the rights of people when they’re interacting with the police. The second part is a discussion about policing in our communities: a chance for people to say they like the RCMP the way it is, to talk about concerns or to raise issues about specific incidents,” he stated. “We will also provide private consultations as needed.”

The workshop in Williams Lake will be held from 4-6pm on Tuesday in room 1305 at Thompson Rivers University. There will be a workshop in Anahim Lake on Wednesday, August 11 at 10am at Ulkatcho Hall and in Quesnel on Wenesday, August 11 at 3pm at the Native Friendship Centre.