B.C. supports possible merger of cities, police forces on Vancouver Island

B.C. Municipal Affairs Minister Nathan Cullen says the province supports amalgamation initiatives in the Capital Regional District where it makes sense for municipalities looking to merge resources.

On Wednesday, the City of Victoria and the District of Saanich issued a joint statement indicating they were moving ahead with a citizens' assembly to investigate the possibility.

Cullen says the province, Victoria and Saanich are each contributing $250,000 to the cost of the assembly but doesn't know what the amalgamation of specific services such as policing would look like.

"I could look at it — it's very specific," he told Gregor Craigie, the host of CBC's On The Island on Thursday. "We broadly try to enable municipalities to realize what it is that they want."

Forming regional police force

Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins is calling for a new amalgamated police force that covers the entire Capital Regional District and is funded by all the municipalities in the region. She says it's unfair her town has to share funding for the Victoria police when the VicPd also benefits communities that don't fund it.

"The City of Victoria is the centre of tourism — it's where people come together and so all of our residents [in the region] go down to the City of Victoria. If everyone were sharing, it would be more equitable for all," Desjardins told On The Island.

On Tuesday, the township voted down the force's supplemental budget requests for this year, which involved additional funding to support specific sworn officer and civilian roles. 

The province ordered Esquimalt and Victoria to combine their police forces in 2003. Under the Policing Framework Agreement which is set to end in December 2023, Victoria, with a population of more than 90,000, shares 86.33 per cent of the Victoria police budget, while Esquimalt's 17,000+ people pay the rest.

But Desjardins says Esquimalt's crime severity index of 39 is much lower than Victoria's 168 and feels her municipality is paying a disproportionate share of policing services relative to actual demand.

"At this time, looking at the idea of adding more resources to an already over-resourced community, we just feel that it's not fiscally responsible to our community to add more cost until we get some resolution of that," she said.

In addition to the Victoria police and the RCMP, the Capital Regional District is served by the municipal police forces of Saanich, Central Saanich and Oak Bay.

Amalgamation of municipal services

Former B.C. solicitor general Kash Heed, who was once the chief of the West Vancouver Police Department, says he agrees with the idea of forming an amalgamated regional police force for the Capital Regional District.

"We are no longer individual cities that are separated by vast mountains or lakes or rivers," he told On The Island. "You can get more of an efficient service by combining those."

In May 2017, the citizens' assembly formed by Duncan and North Cowichan, two communities about 50 kilometres north of Victoria, recommended their amalgamation, but also said the amount of money saved as a result would be negligible. The recommendation was voted down in a referendum held a year later.

Heed says any amalgamation initiative has to come from the people, not politicians, and he hopes that will be reflected in the upcoming municipal elections.

The municipal affairs minister says he respects the right of people to merge municipal resources in a democratic fashion.

"This is something people need to take seriously," he said. "They are doing it in a way that I think is very healthy and democratic."