Wednesday, May 8, 2024 Vol. 47, No. 19
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‘Coffee with a Recruiter’ event in Viking designed to increase RCMP numbers
PATRICIA HARCOURT PHOTO
RCMP Recruiter Neil Muz (left) meets with Viking RCMP Commander Cpl. Ryan Doucette last Thursday during the “Coffee with a Recruiter” event at Food with Flair. Patricia Harcourt Editor
Cst. Neil Muz is on a mission to visit as many communities as he can in an effort to increase the numbers in the RCMP. As an officer with K Division Recruiting Services, he attended Viking’s Food with Flair restaurant last Thursday for a “Coffee with a Recruiter” event. Muz says it is worth the stop if he gets even one interested person approaching him as a potential recruit. Muz calls himself a “proactive recruiter” since starting this new position last July. The RCMP’s latest drive is being attributed to fewer recruitments during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The numbers were down,” he said, after the recent coronavirus pandemic. But there have been positive results with a 77 per cent increase in applicants province-wide since that time.
Recently a provincial minister issued an opinion piece stating that the expectation of a police officer always answering the call for help in rural areas “isn’t always the case” at this time. “The reality is, in these smaller communities, vacancy rates within Alberta’s RCMP detachments have been an ongoing concern,” states Deputy Premier Mike Ells, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services. “This is not an issue unique to Alberta,” he added. “The RCMP have had staffing issues across the country.” The recent data is that as of February 2023 the service is suffering from “significant officer vacancy rates in all eight provinces and three territories where it provides contract policing,” states the article. Nationally, the vacancy rate is about 17 per cent, and in Alberta the RCMP vacancy rate is about 29 per cent. This means
that Alberta is only being served by 1,522 of the 1,911 RCMP officers that the federal government has authorized for Alberta. However, Viking RCMP Commander Cpl. Ryan Doucette says the Viking detachment has a full complement with, four other members besides himself. One member is due to leave in June and be replaced by a cadet fresh out of the RCMP depot in Regina. The UCP government has stated its intention to start its own provincial police force to replace the RCMP, which could be a motivator in the issuing of the recent statistics on RCMP vacancies by the minister of public safety. Meanwhile, the RCMP are out in force to recruit new members as quickly as possible. Recruiters like Muz want to find recruits to train and put into service for rural and other communities. Recruiters are active in both the north-
ern and southern regions in the province, with three for each division. Recently, Muz has travelled to the northern division communities such as Provost, Wainwright, as well as Viking and Tofield. He will drop in for coffee at smaller towns, he said, “to give potential applicants the opportunity to come and ask questions.” He added: “We can have a one-on-one talk about careers and presentations. We’ve had a couple of people come in so far (in Viking).” Muz says going out to the people to recruit has been highly successful. “I have recruited lots,” he said, of applicants to the force during his time. And although he doesn’t himself keep track of the actual numbers, “there is no quota,” he Continued on Page 7