Uniformed patrols, bylaw enforcement, maybe more: ‘Community officers’ coming to Moncton

Moncton city councillors have voted in favour of bringing in “community officers” to enforce bylaws and provide uniformed patrols in the city, particularly in the downtown.

“Their primary role is to increase safety in our city, including our downtown,” says Moncton fire Chief Conrad Landry, who is responsible for fire, emergency measures and bylaw. “Also, (to) be ambassadors to build relationships with our stakeholders, including citizens, our business owners and our vulnerable people, so homeless people, etc.”

Currently, the city has 10 commissionaires, who are responsible for parking enforcement, and two bylaw officers, according to Landry’s presentation to city council Tuesday. All but two of the commissionaires only work weekdays during the day.

The new contract, which council voted in favour of, will replace the existing contract with Corps of Commissionaires.

Under the accepted proposal, the goal is to have two community officers patrolling and responding to calls between 6 a.m. and 2 a.m., seven days a week.

Landry says the officers would patrol on foot or by vehicle in pairs of two, wearing a bulletproof or stab-proof vest, have a policing or security background, and have additional training such as non-violent crisis intervention.

“Low violence intervention; that’s concentrating on how do you deal with people without the violence, how to de-escalate a situation, how to talk to people, how to address situations without returning to (violence),” Landry says.

“They will have some self-defence training to protect themselves, but the idea is not for them to arrest people or to bring people down… The idea is how to mitigate a situation with the best possible outcome.”

Mayor Dawn Arnold says the community officers offer a solution to an ongoing concern from people in the area.

“We’ve been hearing very consistently from stakeholders — from businesses, from residents — that they wanted to have an ongoing, consistent, well-trained security presence in our city,” Arnold told Global News in an interview. “This seemed like a creative solution until we get changes to the Police Act.”

Landry says the community officers will be responsible for the entire city, but will have a focus on the downtown.

“Of course we have increased activity downtown, so they’re going to concentrate a lot downtown,” Landry says, “but they are responsible for the entire city, so if there’s a need somewhere else, they will definitely go there.”

The city is seeking changes to the province’s Police Act that would allow community officers to have more authority.

“In New Brunswick, community safety officers are not recognized,” Landry says. “That’s the first thing, we need to recognize them as peace officers.”

Landry says provinces like Saskatchewan and Manitoba have done so “with success.”

He says parking in front of a fire hydrant is a provincial offence, so community officers couldn’t write tickets with current legislation. If the changes were made to the Police Act, these officers could also respond to public intoxication calls and mental health calls, he says.

Bryan Butler, a city councillor for Ward 3 and retired police officer, was one of the three nay votes to the new contract.

He says he fully supports community safety officers but says the city is putting “the cart before the horse” without Police Act changes or a commitment by the province to do so. The city budgeted $200,000 for the community officers — on top of the existing contract with the commissionaires.

“People are talking about you know defunding police, defunding police; well, you know, this is a way to not always put every bit of money into police, to spend $80 or $90,000 for a police officer where you can get a community safety officer for maybe half the price.”

But Butler says the move will slim down daytime parking enforcement if there are only two community officers working at a time.

The city hopes patrols will start in April.