Lou Morissette, owner of Setting Security Consultants, presented council with a five-year public safety plan Feb. 1, in which he says Prairie Bylaw Enforcement - with a $456,,000 annual contract approximately - is not mitigating problems in the downtown, people he interviewed for his report said, and their bylaw officers receive only very basic training.
It is the most pointed - and expert - criticism levied against Prairie Bylaw since the City of Thompson contracted for their services in the fall of 2007. Morissette delivered his report from the perspective of a citizen appointee on the public safety committee, former MLCC liquor inspector in Thompson and retired RCMP staff sergeant.
Generally, the bylaw officers have received good reviews for being respectful and decent with people they encounter drinking illegally downtown, but they have no authority under provincial legislation in any event to lay open liquor charges against anyone they encounter. The most they can do is dump the booze.
In reality, city council has sent Prairie Bylaw the message all along - even where they have the option to lay charges downtown - to try education first normally and only lay charges generally as a last resort. And even when charges are laid, no one in Thompson in recent years is believed to have ever served default time in jail for failing to pay a fine after a bylaw infraction conviction.
In his report, Morissette looks at the different aspects of the RCMP and Prairie Bylaw Enforcement officers and how it affects the city of Thompson and community safety.
According to his report, Morissette says that the RCMP's sub system - which reports on caseload analysis, financial expenditures and overall trends - is "overwhelmed by a lack of financial technology for the front end user." He states the problem is a huge disconnect of "corporate empires."
Morissette also attests that RCMP managers often have to provide "Band-Aid" operational solutions to deliver the best service possible, with suppositions of duties and roles that, he says, aren't validated under formal structure. Morissette goes on to say that these discrepancies present a flaw in capturing policing costs.
In his report, Morissette suggests to city council that Thompson Rural policing members do not have enough members to adequately police the rural area.
"Thompson Rural can only do so much without the ongoing assistance of city members," he says. "The boundaries between rural and city often become blurred out of policing priority."
Thompson Rural members are expected to respond to calls in the "near rural" area, like Paint Lake, Vale Inco, Wuskwatim Dam, the airport, Pikwitonei, Thicket Portage, Tadoule Lake, York Landing and Split Lake. RCMP Thompson Rural and Thompson Municipal were amalgamated from late 2006 to early summer of 2009, Morissette says. A total of five constables and one corporal must routinely respond to the above-mentioned communities.
"This same group must also respond to all calls such as fatalities, lost hunters/fishermen and conduct criminal investigations encompassing the North," he explains. "This would necessarily include isolated lodges and small settlements. Thompson Rural has patrol cabins in York Landing, Split Lake, Tadoule Lake and Thicket Portage. Thompson Rural members are expected to spend extended time in these communities and overnight for multiple days."
Due to all these factors, Morissette says that the pressures on Thompson Municipal RCMP for Thompson Rural service delivery remains significant.
Citing various statistics, Morissette says that the realistic availability of a Thompson Rural member is approximately 57 per cent of the time - meaning there is no member scheduled 43 per cent of the time.
In another section of his report, Morissette notes that the RCMP demonstrates the need for additional resources by over spending in their current costing areas.
"In order to gain more members, Thompson Rural will have to spend enough overtime to demonstrate to the province that it makes 'fiscal' sense to buy another member. I would suggest, after a review of overtime, that these rural members cannot keep up the current pace of calls out and continuing duty."
Morissette also says that there remains a "huge disconnect" between service deliveries expected from the RCMP and resources provided by the Province of Manitoba.
"I cannot stress enough that the RCMP members at all ranks are very resourceful," he says. "This is to their credit. At the end of the day, salary dollars that have been overlapped in order to address public safety short falls in the rural."
At the end of his report Morissette provided mayor and council with 10 community safety recommendations. The first one, a harm reduction zone and strategy, recommends the initiation of a harm reduction zone working group to study and better research the appropriateness for Thompson.
The second recommendation, for a bylaw enforcement strategy, recommends that discussion take place for a bylaw enforcement strategy that is best suited for Thompson.
The third recommendation involves RCMP current resource implementation and shifting and talks about how a discussion needs to be initiated between the city of Thompson and the RCMP relating to the feasibility of a RCMP 12-hour shift schedule pilot project.
Municipal Policing Agreement Thompson (MPA) is the third recommendation, which says that members working in municipal positions should only be deployed outside of the city of Thompson under conditions or mechanisms defined under the agreement.
The fifth recommendation looks at RCMP invoicing and processing and suggests that discussions should take place between the RCMP, the City of Thompson and the city's Chief Financial officer with the goal of providing a cost breakdown and explanation for adjustments.
The sixth recommendation is a health approach strategy to downtown which involves an inter-agency exchange of personal names and information of people that are being constantly arrested without mandated health care referral.
The seventh recommendation focuses on a gang and youth strategy, and suggests that consideration should be given to supporting the RCMP working with youth.
Eighth on the list of recommendations is an enhanced enforcement action plan, which would look at a reserve fund that could be used to supplement a working watch with RCMP members on paid overtime.
The ninth recommendation looks at transporting street clients from Thompson to their home community in conjunction with Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO) due to an overload in RCMP cell blocks and at the Thompson Homeless Shelter.
The tenth and last recommendation is for a Thompson crime reduction team to be formed.
After hearing Morissette's presentation, Mayor Tim Johnston stated that the city has made a good start on a downtown strategy but there is still more work to do.
"I believe some of the moves we have taken - whether it's through Prairie Bylaw Enforcement, brushing, the graffiti program or improved relationships with the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) and the RCMP - are allowing us to start to see a difference," he says. "Clearly, we've seen it removed from the front page of every paper that we saw a few years ago, so we are making the right steps but we are asking the public to get involved, take a look and get some feedback to us."
Coun. Judy Kolada states that the study is a very realistic interpretation of the problems that exist with the city of Thompson and its surrounding areas.
"The amount of money we're spending - there are some suggestions on how that can be better spend. Its $3.5 million for the RCMP and further half million for Prairie Bylaw, and I think that we need to do some further research," she notes.
The five-year public safety plan is available for viewing at http://www.thompson.ca/
