Q+A | New head of N.W.T. RCMP on drug crime, building trust and 'demystifying' policing

RCMP Chief Supt. Dyson Smith said he already had his eye on the top job six years ago, when he took his first commission as an officer in the N.W.T.

"There's only one chief superintendent position here in the territory. So I was really hoping that I would be lucky enough to be blessed enough to have this role," Smith said. "And I was right."

Smith was named the new commanding officer of the RCMP's "G" division last week, after working his way up through the ranks in the N.W.T. as officer in charge of the Yellowknife detachment and superintendent in charge of criminal operations. He had been serving as commanding officer on an interim basis before being formally appointed last week. 

In an interview with Trailbreaker guest host Shannon Scott Tuesday morning, Smith spoke about prioritizing drug enforcement, building stronger relationships with communities and why he wanted to take on this new role.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What have you learned about policing, specifically by being here in the North?

Well, there's a few things I've always said about being in the North.

First, it takes a unique type of person to thrive here. It's a harsh environment. Our resources are somewhat limited, services are somewhat limited. So you sometimes have to be creative and show real ingenuity when it comes to police work. That's what always has impressed me about our members and all our employees, because they really do care and they want to be here.

You either love the North or you hate the North. I really don't think there's an in-between. And those of us that love it here, we come back — there always seems to be that boomerang effect for a lot of us.

The other thing about it is being close-knit to the communities, you really see the impact of your work. When you're policing big areas or big cities, you don't really get to know the people in your communities like we do here. So when you arrest people or you solve crimes, you don't really see the impact. You just kind of move on to the next one. Whereas here, you actually see the impact. So if you make a good arrest and it solves some crime, all of a sudden there's like a reprieve for the community and you can celebrate that with the community.

Earlier this year, you were given policing priorities for the next few years from Premier R.J. Simpson, in his role as justice minister. The first one is targeting illegal drugs and alcohol. We have seen an increase in drug activity, including even new kinds of drugs, coming into the territory lately. How is the RCMP responding to that?

Last year, I introduced a divisional drug strategy. It's something new and it came in two phases.

Phase one was to work from within, and try to bolster our resources and our knowledge base and our abilities and skills at the detachment level. That included better intelligence gathering and sharing, as well as more of a priority on disruptive techniques.

Phase two was the request for a dedicated drug enforcement team. And this has been realized now with the Crime Reduction Unit that has been sponsored by the government of the Northwest Territories. And we're very appreciative of that. So we're in the process right now of building that team, and that'll be a team that will service the entire territory. So, for example, if Fort Simpson all of a sudden had information that they were gathering about drug activity in that community, that team would then be engaged to help that detachment and then go down and eventually take enforcement action.

So should residents expect to see more action around that kind of activity, in the coming weeks, months, years?

Yes, but I'll throw the caveat that we need the public's help. I always equate investigations to like a car — without fuel, we don't go very far. So for us, we need information. Information is key. So if the community is telling us what's going on and feeding us that information, giving us that fuel, we will be there.

Is the new Crime Reduction Unit focused just on drugs or on other things as well?

The main mandate will be drug enforcement, but they will have the latitude to be able to work on other things. So for example, if there was a theft ring in an area, they would be able to focus attention on breaking that up.

It's not that the local detachments don't have the abilities or skills, I want that clear — they all have that skill set. It's the ability to dedicate the time. So, when you have a detachment member that's trying to work on, say, a drug file or what have you, they're also called away to many other things: domestic assaults, sexual assaults, you name it — any other crimes. They're the Jack-of-all-trades and they get pulled in a bunch of different directions.

So I know that it's frustrating for the communities, when they want to see more action by their local detachment. What I would ask is that they keep in mind that those members are still working very hard, but they're being pulled in a lot of different directions.

The other three priorities from R.J. Simpson in his role as justice minister focus on relationships with communities, with a special focus on Indigenous communities; harm reduction; and safety for Indigenous women and girls. How are you going to build up the relationship between the RCMP and the communities?

One of the things that I really would like to do, and this is something I've been talking about for a long time everywhere I've gone, is trying to demystify policing. I want people to understand and be comfortable with their police force and understand why we do things.

Now, of course, there's times where we can't tell everything that we're doing because there's certain techniques we have to keep secretive, we have to protect them. There's also certain parts of investigations that we can't divulge because it could jeopardize the future of that investigation. But I would like to basically pull back the curtain and show what we do, what we have to offer, and why we do things the way we do. I think that would help to dispel a lot of the, I won't say "rumour," but misinformation that is sometimes out there.

How do you do that?

Well, for example, we could have basically a show-and-tell with our police dog service, explaining how the dog is used, why it's used, when it's deployed, when it's not deployed, and how it's trained. 

There's nothing secretive about that stuff. But then when you see the dog in your community, there's that familiarization already and maybe a lack of fear as well — because we don't want people to be afraid of what we're doing. We're there for a purpose, and our number one priority is public safety.

What would you say to people who maybe don't have trust in police, especially in our Indigenous communities?

Sometimes you can't change that. Sometimes the damage has been done. What I would ask is, give us a chance. That's what I could ask.