Sgt. Eric Hanson
The head of the Sackville RCMP detachment has promised to step up traffic enforcement because he feels his officers aren’t writing enough tickets.
“Traffic enforcement, I regret to say, has been down,” Sgt. Eric Hanson reported to Tantramar Town Council at its meeting last week.
“The number of tickets issued by my officers is lower than I’d like; that will absolutely go back up,” he said, also noting that school patrols were set to begin again.
Hanson reminded council that the officers who work out of the Sackville detachment also cover Memramcook, Port Elgin and rural areas in between.
“Some months more than others those territories can be quite busy,” he said.
He added that between July 15 and August 15, officers were especially busy dealing with calls for service from Memramcook.
“So that takes away from some of the other activities they may have done in Tantramar,” he said.
Officer numbers down
Hanson also reported that policing is affected here because four of his officers are on long-term sick leave.
“The way our organization works, there’s no replacement for these people,” he said.
“There isn’t a pool of RCMP officers that we can borrow from when somebody goes off sick; we just have to bear the weight of their loss.”
He said he’s hoping that one of the four will be returning soon, but the other three absences will be lengthy.
“We do apologize, but there’s nothing that I can do about that unfortunately,” he added.
“The others have to pick up the slack and we shuffle the schedule around to try to fill those holes,” he said.
“There’s less traffic work being done; there’s less of that proactive work being done because those who are working are picking up the slack in the investigations and the calls for service that come in.”
Hanson told CHMA’s Erica Butler later that there are 18 officers in his detachment.
With four out on sick leave, it means that the detachment’s numbers are down by about 22%.
NOTE: The 2012 contract for the 10-member detachment that provided policing for the former Town of Sackville says the following in Article 5.5: “Subject to the discretion of the Commanding Officer, no Member will be replaced when attending a training course that is related to the Municipal Police Service, when on annual leave, or ill except where illness results in a Member’s absence for a period of more than 30 consecutive days.”
For a backgrounder on RCMP services in Sackville that Warktimes published in August 2021, click here.
Does “long term sick leave” in this case mean more than “30 consecutive days”? If so presumably the commanding officer could replace the missing 22% of the police force under the contract, if replacement officers could be found. If, as he says, “The way our organization works, there’s no replacement for these people,” then the contract should be reexamined, since a level of service was contracted for on the understanding that missing officers could be replaced, when according to Hanson the RCMP isn’t capable of honouring that commitment.
Traffic in Sackville has become a zoo, with speeding, tire-squealing, deliberately noisy vehicles, no or faulty mufflers, failure to stop at stop signs, missing headlights, no headlights, no daytime running lights, driving with foglights on all the time, illegal rear-mounted white lights, ATVs driving on town streets. There must be practically zero traffic enforcement.
” “Hanson reminded council that the officers who work out of the Sackville detachment also cover Memramcook, Port Elgin and rural areas in between….”Some months more than others those territories can be quite busy,” he said.” ”
This again raises the question of exactly how many members of the Sackville detachment are devoted to policing within the town boundaries and how many are devoted to the surrounding rural area coverage. According to the town’s contract with the RCMP, there are supposed to be a minimum # of officers dedicated to policing services within the town – we were told at previous town council meetings that the detachment provides a minimum of 10 officers for town coverage. Sgt. Hanson’s statement appears to suggest that all detachment members work shifts both in town and in the surrounding areas. As already mentioned, there is also the question of how long the detachment members have been out on sick leave. If the time periods are longer than 30 days, then according to the contract they should be replaced during the period of their sick leave.
It would be refreshing to see our elected representatives pursue this issue with the RCMP for clarification to ensure that town residents are receiving the level of service that we are paying for.