‘Broken system:’ Policing shortages facing N.B. communities highlight national issue

The RCMP are having trouble recruiting, and small communities across the country say they are suffering as a result.

Some New Brunswick communities are being forced to find creative solutions to law enforcement because of RCMP policing shortages, a phenomenon experts say is symbolic of what much of small-town Canada is experiencing.

Residents of McAdam, N.B., a historic village of about 1,100 people northwest of Saint John, have organized overnight patrols to compensate for a lack of police presence. While 200 kilometres north, the small town of Tobique Valley hired private security guards over one weekend last year after a wave of thefts.

The officer shortage in Tobique Valley is causing a rise in theft and vandalism, district Mayor Tom Eagles said in a recent interview.

“They work shifts and there’s times you don’t see them here for days,” Eagles said about RCMP officers. “I still think we have the best police force in the world. But they’re working under a broken system.”

The RCMP — aside from combating major crime such as terrorism and human trafficking — are contracted to provide policing to about 150 municipalities across Canada in eight provinces; Quebec and Ontario have their own provincial police services. But the RCMP are having trouble recruiting, and small communities across the country say they are suffering as a result.

“It’s a dangerous job. And then the RCMP more recently have come under a lot of public criticism,” Michael Boudreau, professor of criminology at St. Thomas University, said in a recent interview. As well, the force was never created to provide rural and small-town policing, he said.

“They were created to be a national police force, but not necessarily a rural police force. They were created to do things like human trafficking, terrorism, organized crime, but in terms of day-to-day policing on the ground — that was never really the intention of the force.”

Labour shortages are preventing officers from responding in a timely manner, a problem not just in New Brunswick but also in Nova Scotia, Boudreau said.