The Village of Pemberton (VOP) is looking ahead to the challenges of policing once the community exceeds a population of 5,000. at the Jan 21 committee of the whole and Feb. 11 council meetings, officials were presented with a draft budget for 2025, including options for financing a community police force.
“Effectively, once the population hits 5,000 the municipality is obligated to pay for 70 per cent of policing,” said manager of finance Thomas Sikora during a draft budget presentation. “We expect it to be somewhere around a $1.288 million dollar burden in the year of transition.”
Under provincial law, municipalities have the option to create their own municipal police department, establish a contract with an existing municipal police department, or contract with the RCMP to establish a municipal detachment. Sikora said the usual path taken by smaller communities is to pursue the RCMP detachment.
Pemberton was one of the fastest-growing communities in the latest census, expanding from 2,574 in 2016 to 3,407 in 2021. Despite showing a decrease in population across the Sea to Sky, council is reasonably certain it will reach the threshold within the next decade.
“We don’t know when we’re going to hit 5,000,” said Mayor Mike Richman. “I feel fairly confident we’re not going to hit it before the 2026 census, which gives us another census. Hopefully we’re at least 10 years out.”
Council was presented with two options to fund the police transition: gradually filling the RCMP reserves with annual contributions of $257,600 over five years, or an abrupt transition that risks a minimum 40-per-cent tax increase in a single year to generate the $1.288 million needed to pay for a Pemberton detachment.
“I feel like there’s general agreement around the table that we don’t want to just wait and do a [40-per-cent] increase down the road,” said Richman, after some discussion. “We want to start graduating towards that.”
Council raised additional concerns over cost and jurisdiction. Richman noted a not-insignificant part of a future police detachment would involve policing the highway and the areas surrounding Pemberton.
"So here we are as the Village of Pemberton, we’re about to take on 70 per cent of the costs ... how is that justifiable when a large chunk of that pie is managing a provincial highway?" he said.
A sticking point for Richman at both the Jan. 21 and Feb. 11 meetings was the issue of spending on policing areas outside of Pemberton’s boundaries.
"I'd like to get a better understanding ... if we're paying 70 per cent of our RCMP costs once we're over 5,000 and 'x' amount of those services are going outside of our boundaries, is there a cost recovery?" he asked. "And if not, how do we create one?"
Chief administrative officer Elizabeth Tracy said legislative services is in the process of investigating how future policing resources would be spread out between the Village, the highway and those surrounding areas.
"The other questions that remain, too, is what funding and support from surrounding municipalities look like and whether there are savings available to share some of those resources," added Sikora.
Councillor Ted Craddock wondered if the $1.288 million would cover the cost of a new police headquarters. Sikora confirmed the cost was solely to cover the increase in policing personnel and their equipment, and that the headquarters would be a topic of conversation between the Village and provincial authorities over the coming weeks.
Council motioned for corporate and legislative services to evaluate the cost breakdown, and for Sikora to bring back two scenarios showing different levels of graduated increases. Richman also asked to bring proposals for cost- and resource-sharing to the RCMP, the SLRD and the province.
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