LAC LA BICHE – Policing in Lac La Biche County will be moving to 24 hours a day seven days a week in October. Lac La Biche currently has 21-hours of on-duty coverage per day.
According to Lac La Biche RCMP Staff Sergeant Chris Mosley, they expect the change to improve response times, especially during the early morning hours when members have typically been at home but on call.
“There’s about a 15-minute delay when we’re on call. So I’m anticipating that going away which would be great for the residents and the people that are in Lac La Biche,” said Mosley during his presentation.
According to the report included in the Lac La Biche County agenda package Aug. 26, response times from the Lac La Biche detachment are slightly better than the provincial average at 21.2 minutes, but during the on-call hours the response time averages 35 minutes.
According to the report, the detachment averaged 16 calls per day in 2024 with 255 of those calls taking place during the three on-call hours.
According to Mosley, the change to 24-7 service is possible because the detachment is nearly fully staffed right now with 19 out of 20 positions filled. The detachment is also hoping to implement a watch clerk program.
“We'd be looking for these staff members to work a rotating shift work and in partnership with the members that are on duty, both day and night, the role would take a lot of the administrative duties off of the officers. So doing CPIC [Canadian Police Information Centre] responses, building court packages, doing Record Management System entries, a lot of things that that do tie the officers up and keep them in the office. These are things that we're looking to take off their plate so that we can have more time on the road and less time sitting behind a desk,” said Mosley.
According to Mosley, Lac La Biche RCMP and Lac La Biche County recently signed a memorandum of understanding which gives the county’s peace officers access to the RCMP radio channel.
“In the past, if we needed assistance from the peace officers or vice versa, we would have to go through a process of calling our dispatch. … This MOU now gives us unfettered access to each other. We can respond to calls for assistance, we can do updates. We can work more cooperatively on a regular basis and have a better understanding of who's doing what and where, and that should help to enhance service again in the community, in addition to improving officer safety,” said Mosely.
Another initiative being discussed is the possibility peace officers could see their authority expanded to include investigating low level, low risk criminal code activities like thefts.
“This is something that we're very much in the initial stages on, but just another activity to try to get the officers out where the community would like to see them in their neighbourhoods; investigating the bigger crimes that are harming the community and still not without losing the focus on dealing with some of the smaller stuff that does come in, which is also a frustration for folks in the community,” said Mosley.
