Nova Scotia’s Cumberland County considering replacing RCMP

Nova Scotia’s Cumberland County is considering a new police force to replace the RCMP.

The municipal council held a special meeting Tuesday and, within eight minutes, unanimously approved the search.

Last April, the municipality agreed to a review of police service options.

Mayor Murray Scott said the municipality had been hearing concerns from residents on community visibility, response times, and overall safety.

A committee was tasked with reviewing the current model, the community’s needs and potential options, which involved hearing from residents, officials and RCMP.

The committee initially came up with three options: make no changes, conduct a review with the current provider ensuring concerns raised during public consultations are addressed, or issue a request for proposals for municipal policing services.

Ultimately, the committee recommended the third option to council. That was approved Tuesday.

The deadline for submissions is May 19.

The municipality says it is expecting a few proposals, one of which will come from the current police force, the RCMP.

Dennis Daley, the assistant commissioner of the Nova Scotia RCMP, says the force has the officers, knowledge, equipment and training to serve the municipality with, “exceptional policing services.”

Assistant Commissioner Dennis Daley, the commanding officer of the Nova Scotia RCMP, poses at RCMP headquarters in Dartmouth, N.S. on Wednesday, December 14, 2022. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese)

“I want to reassure residents, business owners and stakeholders in Cumberland County that our commitment to you remains,” Daley wrote in a statement to CTV News Tuesday.

“We will continue to serve you with professionalism and pride, solving crime and promoting public safety, throughout the policing review process.”

Scott said he's not surprised the RCMP plans on submitting a proposal -- if anything, he had hoped they would. Scott said the terms of reference spells out clearly what the municipality's expectations are with policing, and the RCMP will have the opportunity to respond.

Once the deadline has closed, the committee will review the proposals and make a recommendation back to council. Council will then make the final decision on what to do.

If the municipality chooses to change police forces, Scott said they would have to provide a year's notice. He said the Attorney General would also have to agree to any changes, and noted it can be quite a long process.

This isn’t the first Nova Scotia community to conduct a review of its police services. Colchester County, which includes Portapique, began a review just before the April 2020 mass shooting that claimed 22 lives.

The Colchester review is now complete, but those findings are not public yet. They’re expected to be shared at a meeting later this month.

In the recently released final report from the Mass Casualty Commission, several recommendations were laid out on how policing in rural communities can be improved.