Vermilion RCMP is looking to expand its workforce, among other priorities.
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At the Town of Vermilion’s March 11 council meeting, Sgt. Corey Buckingham, Vermilion RCMP detachment commander, presented third-quarter data for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
The quarter spans from October 2024 to December 2024.
RCMP were busy with local policing but also community information events, holding two town halls. The first was held in Derwent on Oct. 17, 2024, alongside Two Hills RCMP.
“The second we had in Innisfree in February, didn’t have a huge attendance but some people did come out. There were some good questions and some good discussion,” said Buckingham.
Transparency has been a key item on the mind of RCMP in Vermilion.
“The second piece of that communication is just being more transparent and putting out public communications in the different forms we’re able to,” he said, saying they’re releasing information through alerts and media releases.
Buckingham says work has been underway to establish a social media page in hopes of getting less urgent information out to the public.
“One of the things I’ve been working on for a while that has finally come to fruition is our Facebook page,” he said. “For a government agency to have something and have a platform where we can share things that aren’t necessarily extremely pressing.”
Another priority for the detachment includes police visibility.
“Third priority being police visibility, again, two objectives or initiatives there, one is documented vehicle stops. We had a goal of, I think it was 360, through the third quarter, we’re at 421,” said Buckingham.
Initiatives at the detachment are well on their way to being met.
“The check stops, we had set a goal of six and we have five completed through the third quarter. All those initiatives are on track or met already,” he said.
Buckingham is looking to council for their priorities for the upcoming year.
“Again, just looking from council to confirm what your priorities are going to be for the upcoming fiscal year,” he said.
Vermilion RCMP is currently looking to fill two vacancies in their staffing.
“We still have the nine established regular-member positions. Currently, I have seven members on staff with two hard vacancies due to another transfer that happened in January,” said Buckingham.
He says there is a member identified and coming to fill one of the voids.
“I should hopefully have some news on that in the next month or so. He’s an experienced member with quite a bit of service,” said Buckingham.
The other vacancy will hopefully be filled within the next couple of months.
Buckingham also explained the detachment could grow and bring in more members to help with policing.
“I had a workload analysis completed, which came back and supports the addition of at least two additional member positions,” he said.
Buckingham says he’s completed his business case and it has been submitted through the district. No feedback on the business case had been received as of the March 11 council meeting.
Coun. Robert Pulyk commented that crime remained high in the community.
“The total number of break-and-enters, theft of motor vehicles, possession of stolen goods, fraud, arson, mischief, damage to property, the numbers are, from an outsider looking in, they’re disturbingly high,” said Pulyk.
“You’re talking like 114 incidents and 117, 105. That’s over a long period of time but the trend doesn’t seem to be going down to zero.”
Buckingham clarified these categories can be high as they cover a large geographical region.
“Property crime continues to be our top priority. Break-and-enter, that category, encompasses a large number of things. We obviously have a lot of industry in our area in our 4,300 km we cover.That includes different oil shacks and pump shacks and all those sorts of things. Anytime any of those are gone into, that qualifies as a break-and-enter,” he said.
He said if a fenced compound had the fence breached it also qualifies as a break-and-enter.
Buckingham, however, remains optimistic about crime trends in the town.
“Like I said, I think we’re still down from some of the numbers we saw back in 2017/18,” he said.
An invitation to council was extended for them to attend a ride-along, which is being set up for council to see RCMP operations.
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