A provincial release issued in late June states the government will move ahead with further strengthening of police standards, which every police agency must meet, adding government will work with those that cannot meet the standards through expansion of the provincial police which is currently the RCMP. Last September, Minister of Justice Becky Druhan directed new policing standards for all police agencies in Nova Scotia, with compliance audits on those standards set to start this fall.
Ryan Leil serves as chief of the New Glasgow Regional Police, one of 10 municipal police agencies in Nova Scotia, and serves as spokesperson for the Municipal Chiefs Caucus, a group from the Nova Scotia Chiefs of Police Association.
Leil said the caucus agrees with the province on the position that every resident should have access to consistent, high quality and adequately resourced policing, noting many municipal police agencies are already delivering on those priorities. Leil also noted, when speaking about the compliance audits, he doesn’t want the public to have an impression that those standards weren’t already being achieved.
What the province is stating, noted Leil, is that if municipal police agencies do not have access to a specialized service within their own organizations, they will have to rely on RCMP for those support services. Leil said there are some issues with that.
Leil said there are still more questions than answers at this point, and focus should remain on collaboration and working on identifying solutions in the best interest of the public.