The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor City council wants to change how Manitoba communities pay for police protection, but it's unclear whether their plan would save Flin Flon taxpayers in the long run. Council has convinced the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM), an influential lobbying group, to push for a per-capita funding model with the RCMP. Manitoba communities currently pay for RCMP services based on which population category they fall into. A difference of just a few people can raise or drop the price tag by hundreds of thousands of dollars. 'The whole system doesn't make sense provincially,' said Mayor George Fontaine. Mayor Fontaine said communities of less than 750 people pay nothing for their RCMP protection. Those between 750 and 5,000 people sign agreements with the Mounties, while those with more than 5,000 must commit to more costly contracts. The City of Flin Flon, with a population of 5,592, pays $1.2 million to the RCMP each year. At the AMM's recent convention in Winnipeg, member communities adopted city council's resolution calling for a system that has municipalities pay on a per-capita basis. No specific figures were mentioned. Yet the long-term implications of such a change are, as far as Flin Flon is concerned, unknown. If Flin Flon's population remains above 5,000, it is possible a per-capita system would save the city money. But if the current system remains in place and Flin Flon slips to below 5,000 people, Mayor Fontaine estimates policing costs would likely go down 80 per cent. Such dramatic savings would likely not materialize under the per-capita system council is advocating. Even if the province does not adopt a per-capita system, Mayor Fontaine said he hopes the resolution will at least prompt the province to reevaluate the current funding model. See 'Resol..' on pg.10 Continued from pg. 1 He said he and council were displeased earlier this year when they were given a new RCMP contract to sign even though they had no involvement in the negotiations between the Mounties and the province. The AMM resolution says the current funding model 'is based on artificial population thresholds, and leads to some municipalities paying too much, relative to their population, for policing services, while others pay too little.' At last week's council meeting, Mayor Fontaine was asked whether it would be possible to simply amalgamate the Flin Flon and Creighton RCMP detachments. Mayor Fontaine said the idea has been discussed but Creighton, with a population well below 2,000, would have no incentive to join a costlier system. 'They've got a better deal than we do and why would they?' he asked rhetorically. Municipal Administrator Mark Kolt said the RCMP 'has a command structure built more on provincial lines and that makes it complicated on a whole other level in addition to the funding issues.' 'I think it's something that makes a lot of intuitive sense to people in our area,' said Kolt. 'They feel like we're a region in so many ways. But actually trying to make the model work can be surprisingly complicated.'
