City to continue to advocate for online police reporting tool

Dec 11, 2019 | 5:07 AM

The City of Grande Prairie is hoping to be home to an online police reporting pilot project in the future.

Mayor Bill Given had instructed City Administration to report back on how to introduce the tool for the community. Currently, the tool is not compatible with the national record management system used by RCMP.

The tool is being introduced in various municipalities in British Columbia, where the police records management system in operate under a province wide system instead.

Mayor Given says he will still push for Grande Prairie to have this tool, noting it may take a while.

“This is a really good example of how change happens, sometimes it’s slower than we’d like, but we have been successful using this model in the past. Our Collision Reporting Centre was the first of it’s kind for RCMP jurisdictions in Canada, and that was the result of many years of advocacy and lobbying.”

Mayor Given will write a letter to the RCMP’s ‘K’ Division, advocating for Grande Prairie to be selected for a pilot project if one becomes available.

Administration says the Officer in Charge of the Grande Prairie RCMP Detachment has talked to the RCMP National Headquarters and said that the City of Grande Prairie would be an ideal location for a pilot of a national rollout of online police reporting.

by Emily Keller