Kelowna RCMP split from West Kelowna ‘like a divorce’

The Okanagan policing break-up is putting urgency on what West Kelowna argues is a funding shortage that falls on the province.

Mayor Gord Milsom said West Kelowna is the “big fish” in the regional RCMP force after Kelowna split from the rest.

“They’ve moved ahead on it and it’s been kind of like a divorce,” the mayor told iNFOnews.ca. “They made this decision and as a result policing’s split up into small areas.”

For more than a decade Kelowna was the hub for a Central Okanagan regional police force that spanned from Lake Country to Peachland with a rural jurisdiction that included the Big White Ski Resort.

Within the past four years, Milsom said Kelowna studied its spending and split off due to concerns it was paying more than its fair share.

“Kelowna was carrying more costs than it should have. So, our approach was to work together and find out exactly what it is and pay our fair share,” he said. “Given that, the regional approach could have carried on.”

They’re now in the process of taking over administrative tasks from the Kelowna detachment and crunching the numbers.

He said taking over those duties was initially thought to be equal to past payments to Kelowna, but it may turn out to cost more for West Kelowna taxpayers.

Milsom said he would prefer to see Peachland and Westbank First Nation stay joined with West Kelowna as a regional police force, but there’s now an urgency to address what he described as a long-standing officer shortage.

Communities on the westside of the lake have lobbied the province for years to hire more rural officers, only adding one to the West Kelowna ranks since 2009. Meanwhile, the city has added around 19 officers in that time.

He said a recent RCMP study of its own local ranks found rural patrol staffing is at least seven officers short, leaving West Kelowna RCMP to pick up the slack.

“It’s not fair for the taxpayers of West Kelowna to cover the cost of policing in rural areas,” he said, which happens to include Westbank First Nation.

Meanwhile, Kelowna’s far larger detachment is even low in its own ranks. Though staffing fluctuates with officers on leave, it has around 197 officers on the road and Supt. Chris Goebel said it needs 32 more to meet the demand.

A spokesperson for the BC public safety minister told iNFOnews.ca it has been working with West Kelowna, Peachland and Westbank First Nation for the past two years to address whether it will hire more rural officers, with another meeting scheduled this month.