Image: City of Chilliwack / Chilliwack City Council (pictured) has asked city staff to send a letter to the province asking it to conduct its own curfew checks through probation services, and not expect the RCMP to continue doing those curfew checks. Councillor Bud Mercer, a former 34-year member of the RCMP, says curfew checks are a provincial responsibility, not the job of Mounties.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Chilliwack City Council

Council to ask province to do its own curfew checks, not RCMP as Chilliwack Mounties do now

Jan 26, 2023 | 9:09 AM

CHILLIWACK — Chilliwack Councillor Bud Mercer minced no words when it comes to the provincial government expecting the RCMP, a federal police force, to conduct curfew checks in Chilliwack.

Mercer, a 34-year member of the RCMP who worked his way up to assistant commissioner and chief operating officer for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver, said the provincial government should stop abdicating its responsibility concerning curfew checks.

RCMP Superintendent Davy Lee, Officer-in-Charge for the Upper Fraser Valley RCMP detachment, told councillors at their meeting on Tuesday, January 24 that the Upper Fraser Valley RCMP logged 30,954 calls for service in 2022, of which 1,406 were assigned “Priority 1” calls. It conducted 697 curfew checks and 1,910 foot patrols in 2022.

Mercer, now in his second term as a city councillor, did not welcome the curfew checks done by Chilliwack-area Mounties because those duties belong to the provincial government.

“With council’s support, I’d like to see a letter going out again to the province talking about probation services,” Mercer said during Tuesday’s meeting. “We’ve been dealing with this for two years with the community safety task force on the RCMP, through the downloading of the province. The police force we’re paying for is doing curfew checks, which is clearly the responsibility of the provincial government and probation services. Just like during the task force tenure, we asked a number of times and got the same answer, (which is), ‘We only work 8-4 Monday through Friday, so we don’t do our own curfew checks and we rely on the police to do it.'”

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Image: City of Chilliwack screenshot / Councillor Bud Mercer has asked city staff to send a letter to the province expressing opposition to the current practice of Mounties conducting curfew checks.

Mercer said it was a presumptuous gesture from the province to expect municipal police agencies to do their job.

“It’s arrogant and so far offside,” Mercer asserted. “Nothing might come from (a letter), but I think a missile should be inbound.”

Supt. Lee explained that the 697 curfew checks undertaken by Mounties in 2022 involved a combination of probation and release conditions.

“When we approach (the province) to do some of that, they indicate they don’t do field work,” Supt. Lee said.

Councillors subsequently passed a motion to have city staff draft a letter conveying municipal opposition to the current practice involving curfew checks.

by Mike Vanden Bosch

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Council to ask province to do its own curfew checks, not RCMP as Chilliwack Mounties do now

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