RCMP Supt. Kara Triance.
Image Credit: Submitted/Kelowna RCMP
May 17, 2021 - 3:08 PM
While uttering nothing but praise for the good work her police officers are doing, it’s clear that Kelowna RCMP Supt. Kara Triance is working hard to change the culture in her force.
During her quarterly update on crime statistics, she spent much more time talking about retraining police officers and making sure they’re at their best on each and every call than about crime incidents.
“We have control over culture,” Triance said. “We have control over how much compliance with that training there is. When I say compliance with training, there’s mandatory training and it is my job is to make sure each and every one of my police officers has met that compliance.”
She’s bringing in training on things like cultural safety training for Indigenous people, diversity training and trauma training.
READ MORE: Kelowna crime down in most categories to start 2021
Triance did not say why all this training is needed but she did say that some of the initiatives are coming from the national Vision 150 program to modernize the RCMP.
“There will be a relentless focus from our leadership team on professional conduct about showing up at our best for each and every call,” she said. “We need to make sure that, as we talk about culture change, and the slow progressive wave of effective change that I intend to build with momentum, that we understand that, while we set clear standards, we have to have the time in which to do that and to invoke into training and leadership to make sure that we are having the time to address concerns when they arise.”
That training, however, is on hold as the number of frontline officers needs to be boosted to deal with the expected influx of visitors to Kelowna this summer. That also means some investigations are being put on hold while those officers are re-assigned to regular duties and vacations have been limited.
There were about 12,500 calls for service in Kelowna in the first three months of the year, which is on track to hit 14,000 by the end of June.
Kelowna has the highest crime and case load rates as compared to six other large B.C. cities, Triance said.
Kelowna officers carry an average of 90 case files compared to 52 to 54 in each of Burnaby, Victoria and Surrey while Vancouver, Richmond and Abbotsford came in at 44 to 45 each.
Kamloops has similar case loads to Kelowna, Triance said.
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