Standing before the British Columbia legislature on March 27, 1950, then-Attorney General Gordon Wismer launched a passionate argument for replacing the province’s police force with the RCMP.
The introduction of the mountains will make the police more efficient, strengthen national security and save the provincial government more than $ 1 million, he said. The police themselves, he insisted, have nothing to worry about – they will receive better training, better pay and better pensions at the RCMP.
A newspaper columnist said this was “the best, most resolute” defense of Wismer’s government plan to date. But many, including the police themselves, were still puzzled when British Columbia’s provincial police were abruptly closed in August.
More than 70 years later, the question of who is best suited to the BC police reached the legislature again on Thursday. The MPP unanimously agreed on a party line that the province should abandon the RCMP and re-establish a provincial police force.
British Columbia Attorney General Gordon Wismer, right, is pictured around 1940. Wismer introduced the bill, which would later close British Columbia Provincial Police in 1950 (Vancouver City Archives)
Decision to switch to RCMP
The British Columbia Provincial Police (BCPP), established at Fort Langley in 1858 to control the new British Columbia colony, had more than 520 officers in 123 police departments throughout the province when it was disbanded at midnight on 15 August 1950.
The change did not go well. At least 11 officers have resigned instead of moving to the RCMP. Dozens of municipalities from Vancouver Island to the Kutenai family, who felt excluded from the talks, wrote scathing letters to international legal relations about their “secrecy.”
In an editorial in a newspaper, readers asked for “general courtesy” for a better explanation of the decision.
“[The province had] not a dime mandate from voters to pass the scheme on as it was, without discussing the full pros and cons of the legislature, “the Times Colonist said in a letter.
“It seems incredible that all this is being swept away almost overnight, without any sanction from the people of British Columbia, on the basis of a common bill passed through a very trusting legislator.
Don N. Brown, a World War II veteran who spent three years with the BCPP before its dissolution, was determined to find out why the province had shut down. He was among the officers who joined the RCMP and retired as superintendent after 27 years.
In his book, published in 2000, Brown outlined a number of theories he explored: the province mistakenly believes the RCMP will be cheaper, politicians worry the BCPP will unite, forces lose members to the military or the federal government wants police in BC to help stop communism.
Brown didn’t buy any of them.
BC Provincial Police Constable WB Stewart received the Royal Police Medal of Bravery in Vancouver in 1946 (Vancouver City Archives)
“Despite the apologies … there is absolutely no meaningful reason for the cessation of police forces, recognized by all as brave, compassionate and with extensive experience in police management, not only in the harsh desert of British Columbia, but also recognized police forces in large urban areas, “wrote Brown, who died in 2009.
In his last pages, Brown recommended that BC restart the provincial police.
“I think it would be impossible to reconstruct a provincial police force similar in nature to the one that was destroyed in 1950. It’s a different world than it was then,” Brown wrote. “[But] that would be the ideal. “
Members of the BC Provincial Police Henry Avison, Deputy Inspector. TWS Parsons and Chief Const. A. McNeill at South Fort George, near Prince George, British Columbia, 1918 (Vancouver City Archives)
Since then, politicians have spoken out every few years to say the same thing – but each time the debate has faded.
Wally Opal, a former judge and Attorney General of the British Columbia Supreme Court, has supported the idea of a single police agency for the entire province since the mid-1990s. Whether BC stays with the RCMP or returns to the provincial police model, he said, public confidence in the process and the product will be key if the reform succeeds in the modern age.
“Police agencies or any other type of agency, they will have all kinds of trust, there must be some local responsibility,” Opal said on Thursday.
“The days when high-level governments made decisions without any involvement from the local community, and especially local communities, are really over.
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