Sgt. Eric Hanson addresses the community meeting in Dorchester on May 23rd. Hanson has headed the RCMP detachment in Sackville since the fall of 2022

Concerns about policing, especially the enforcement of traffic laws, were a consistent theme over the last month as Tantramar officials held community meetings in each of the municipality’s five wards.

“We know what you want is to see more of us,” RCMP Sgt. Eric Hanson told those who attended the first meeting in Dorchester on May 23rd.

“I do the best I can with the number of cops that we have on the road,” he added, referring to the recruitment crisis the Mounties are facing in every province and territory.

“More are coming slowly, but if you need to complain come see me and I’ll do my best to give you the service you deserve.”

Hanson said he agreed with residents in Dorchester who complained about persistent speeding on Main Street.

“It is a bad spot for speeding,” he admitted.

“Unfortunately, it’s one of hundreds of roads where people are speeding in our jurisdiction…and as much as I’d love to be able to put one hundred officers on the street, one parked at every busy street, I can’t.”

Hanson said that when officers do enforce speed limits on Rte. 106 in Dorchester, they often write 20 to 30 tickets in a single afternoon and he added that speeding is a chronic problem in many other locations too including King Street in Sackville.

“It is important to bring those specific locations to my attention and to my officers’ attention. If I could put somebody there 24 hours a day writing speeding tickets, I would, but it’s just not a reality unfortunately.”

RCMP sign outside the detachment at Town Hall in Sackville. Last fall, Tantramar council voted to increase the number of officers from 10 to 14 under a municipal policing service agreement that covers Sackville, Dorchester and the former local service districts

Last fall, Tantramar Town Council voted to pay for 14 full-time RCMP officers assigned to Sackville, Dorchester and the former local service districts (LSDs) under a new municipal policing service agreement (MPSA).

The former town of Sackville previously had 10 full-time officers, but because of illness and recruiting problems, the number had fallen to around eight.

The former village of Dorchester and the former LSDs were policed under a separate provincial policing service agreement (PPSA), but are now included in Tantramar’s municipal agreement that came into effect this spring.

During this week’s community meeting in Westcock, former Sackville Mayor Shawn Mesheau asked if the new contract still allows the municipality to set priorities for policing.

Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Borne replied that the RCMP will set priorities in conjunction with town council.

“We can certainly ask the RCMP if they can share a document [on priorities] or whatever they’ve prepared for the public,” she said.

“So, it’s not in the contract that the municipality would set the priorities for what it needs in policing?” Mesheau asked.

“In conjunction with council, they [RCMP] would set the priorities, yes,” Borne said.

“So, those aren’t public?” Mesheau asked.

“They’re not published right now, but we can certainly take the steps to see that that gets published, absolutely,” Borne replied. “Great point.”

Note: Article 6.1 of the MPSA that governed policing in Sackville gave the mayor the power to set “the objectives, priorities and goals” of the RCMP.

Article 5.5 of the agreement said this about the normal complement of officers who are members of the municipal RCMP detachment:

To read the Sackville contract, click here.

To read about the RCMP’s most recent promise to increase traffic enforcement, click here.

For background information on RCMP municipal policing in Sackville that I published in 2021, click here.