MLA Guy Gentner is concerned that the push for integrated policing for the lower mainland may not be taking into account the importance of community.

“I fully understand why people would want an integrated police force. The thinking is that one police force would be better at catching the bad guys than several municipal forces. This stems from the grief of recent crimes and frustration that the bad guys seem to be getting away with it,” said MLA Gentner. “However, to quote [Chief Constable] Jim Cessford, let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water.”

“The strongest proponent for integration is Vancouver because they’d have the most to gain by accessing our resources. We’d have the most to lose, because under integration, our officers who know us best will be working elsewhere and we will have strangers driving around once in a while to see if we’re okay. Well, I’m not okay with that.”

What we need,” said Gentner, “is a full consultative process to explore all possible solutions. I know this government is not interested in listening to people and have ignored the recommendations from their own conversation on health, but that’s what we need. We need to look at what our longest serving Chief Constable is proposing.”

Chief Constable Cessford put forward a strong argument for community-based policing at the forum on the “Creation of Regional Police Service for Metro Vancouver,” February 6, 2008. In a paper entitled From Integration to Organization, Cessford outlines the importance of a holistic community police partnership of addressing neighbourhood concerns. This countered a Toronto styled amalgamation model which, as comments noted at the time, does not serve outlying municipalities well.

“What Jim [Cessford] wants is a provincial police model that works with local police without taking officers away from the community and supports the integrated units through coordinating their efforts. We have a hard working police force in Delta who know our neighbourhoods well. We have hard working integration units going after the bad guys regionally. Both need to be supported. Both require cooperation from the community. So let’s continue working with our police force in partnership as proposed by Cessford. Let’s have that conversation.”

http://www.deltapolice.ca/media/presentations/integration_organization_p...

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