Whereas 100 of Fail to Appear charges at provincial courthouses are assigned to the policing statistics of the local government in which the courthouse is located, having a disproportionate impact on the policing costs assigned to small municipalities with courthouses that serve a much broader area outside their jurisdiction; And whereas this inflates the Criminal Code case load for all local governments with courthouses within their jurisdiction and results in an unfair burden to the taxpayers of those local governments, especially considering that Fail to Appear cases have no effect on the workload of the local detachment: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM urge the Province of British Columbia to direct that Criminal Code Section 1452-5 and 732.12b and 3a be excluded from the policing statistics of local governments with courthouses.
Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General Per British Columbias Police Act, the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General is responsible for ensuring adequate and effective levels of policing and law enforcement services are maintained across BC. To inform and support this legislated responsibility, the Province analyzes various police, crime and workload metrics and liaises with police, local governments and other local representatives who provide valuable local contextual information. The Province recognizes that some policing statistics within a police jurisdictions boundaries may be attributable to visitors who may travel into and out of these boundaries for various reasons, such as accessing courthouse services. Per the BC Police Act, municipalities are responsible for provision of all policing and law enforcement within their boundaries, and the Act does not consider provisions related to the impact of visitors. The Province is bound by the current parameters of the Act in its analysis of policing and law enforcement. Unique local contexts may impact certain crime statistics, such as the impact of a provincial courthouse on administration of justice violations like failure to appear. While the Province recognizes these impacts, it is not standard practice to exclude one specific violation from analysis, though the impacts of a specific offence may be highlighted on a case-by-case basis. Exclusion of a specific offence is not expected to result in notable differences in the Provinces overall assessment of local policing needs, as crime statistics represent only one type of policing information used in analysis. A recent RCMP resource review of a municipality with a courthouse confirmed that exclusion of failure to appear offences from analysis had minimal to no impact on the overall assessment of its police resourcing needs.