RCMP officer vacancy rate remains at 20 per cent level in British Columbia

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The RCMP continues to have a vacancy rate of over 20 per cent in British Columbia due to unfilled positions and officers on leave.

But Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, head of the RCMP in British Columbia, said the situation is improving.

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Vacant positions stand at nine percent or more and another 13.5 percent of officers are on leave, according to the latest figures McDonald provided to Postmedia this week. BC has 7,350 or more authorized positions for RCMP officers involved in federal, provincial and municipal policing.

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The unemployment rate is similar to the situation the force was in at the end of November 2022, almost 18 months ago.

McDonald said the biggest factor is recent changes that allow new and experienced recruits hired in BC to be sent back to this province and have more of a say in where they will be posted after completing training. That’s a big difference from when new officers had little idea or choice about where they would go in Canada, McDonald said.

“That significantly changed the recruiting landscape for us. When we made that change last May-June, our claims across the province literally went up 400 per cent in the first month,” McDonald said.

Recent wage increases have also helped, McDonald said.

The RCMP union, the National Police Federation, which represents about 20,000 officers, has won pay increases, including a recent arbitration decision. which provides an eight percent increase more than two years. He has brought RCMP salaries in line with other police forces in Canada.

McDonald said for the first time in several years there has been an increase in the number of officers in BC, with the number of officers retiring dropping to about 250 last year from a high of 350 annually.

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BC is also benefiting from an increased flow of recruits through the RCMP training center in Saskatchewan after numbers dropped significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. He is also helping a program that allows experienced officers to join the force quickly without having to go through six-month recruit training. Last year, 92 officers were hired in British Columbia through that program, McDonald said.

The RCMP is also getting a $230 million boost announced by the British Columbia government in late 2022 to hire 256 additional RCMP officers over three years to carry out provincial duties, including highway patrol, duty in smaller and more remote communities and the investigation of serious crimes.

British Columbia Ministry of Public Safety officials said progress is being made with the hiring of 59 officers and 30 public service employees starting in March 2024 to increase RCMP staffing with that funding increase.

Still, with between 9.0 and 9.5 percent of permanent positions unfilled, that means between 660 and 700 positions are vacant. Another nearly 1,000 officers are on leave, including maternity and paternity leave, short-term and long-term sick leave for illness and injury, suspensions and unpaid leave.

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The RCMP provides three levels of policing in British Columbia and has the largest number of mounted police of any province. RCMP staff shortage is a problem throughout the countryas well as for other police forces.

The RCMP has federal force members in British Columbia who provide services in areas such as organized crime and national security, as well as providing officers for the provincial force and more than 140 municipalities, including communities such as Surrey, Burnaby and Richmond.

McDonald said there are more vacant positions in federal policing services than at the provincial and municipal levels, although he did not provide a breakdown of those numbers.

Despite the vacancies, there are no challenges the RCMP hasn’t been able to meet, McDonald said.

“I am very confident that we have never fallen below the standard that the province has set for appropriate and effective policing,” he said.

There have been some challenges in the supply of officers in rural and remote areas, with accommodation availability sometimes being an issue. Those gaps can be filled with officers from the RCMP’s provincial support team who can visit communities for short periods of time, McDonald said.

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Police have been in the spotlight recently in British Columbia for several reasons, including questions about the long-term future of RCMP contract policing for provinces and municipalities and the bitter dispute over moving to a force municipal in Surrey to replace the RCMP.

McDonald said Surrey’s transition to the municipal force, where the remaining 587 RCMP officers will be replaced, does not give the force the ability to provide a quick solution to BC’s vacancies because the transition is moving slowly.

“It’s not that next week we are going to have 587 people to put throughout the province,” he said.

Of the RCMP officers in Surrey who have already moved, about 90 per cent chose to stay in British Columbia, McDonald said.

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