Saanich police chief weighs in on staffing challenges, potential Island training academy

Saanich’s police chief says his department needs to expand by at least two officers a year.

Saanich’s police chief is stepping into the conversation about recruitment and retention issues, which are affecting departments in B.C. and across the country.

In contrast to the Victoria Police Department (VicPD), whose chief said it’s woefully understaffed, Saanich Police Department (SPD) Chief Dean Duthie said his staffing situation is challenging but not dire.

“We sit at approximately a five-per-cent vacancy rate, which is obviously not ideal,” Duthie said in an interview Wednesday.

“But in comparison to other police departments our size, we are on the lower end in terms of vacancies.”

Saanich has an authorized strength of 172 officers. As of Oct. 31, it had 10 vacant positions, seven members on various forms of leave, and 14 recruits in training.

Since then, those numbers have fluctuated and will continue to, Duthie said, largely due to pending hires and retirements.

“Although we are not at full strength, the spots that we have that we need to be filled are not compromising our service delivery,” he said.

CTV News obtained the staffing numbers through a freedom of information request after the department declined to share them in September.

At that time, an SPD spokesperson said the department was experiencing “great need” when it comes to staffing.

“To better understand that need, our department has just recently undergone an in-depth organizational review,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Staff are still awaiting the final report.

Duthie said there’s nuance to the ever-changing numbers and the initial decision not to disclose them isn’t due to organizational opacity.

“There’s a lot of context that goes around what hard vacancies mean and what soft vacancies mean, so … that was the pause that we took at that point,” he said.

“But it’s, again, not an issue with sharing information.”

Potential for Island-based training academy

SPD is scheduled to present its budget to Saanich council on Dec. 1.

While Duthie didn’t disclose specific budget requests, he said his team needs to expand by at least two officers a year to keep up with population growth.

“It’s really important to recognize that as (the) community grows and different challenges are emerging in the public safety sector, that police departments remain agile and adaptive and responsive,” he said.

“This means resource reallocations. We can’t police how we did 10 years ago or even five years ago.”

Saanich mayor and police board member Dean Murdock said like many departments, SPD is constrained by the number of seats it’s given per training intake at the Justice Institute of B.C. (JIBC).

“That’s starting to turn. We’ve seen an expansion in available seats for training and we’ve also seen an increase in the number of recruits that are coming into the department,” Murdock said.

VicPD is awaiting provincial approval to establish a satellite JIBC campus, which would temporarily train Island-based recruits. Both Duthie and Murdock support the request, with a caveat about quality.

“The level of training and the quality of training has to be exactly the same as what’s offered at the Justice Institute of British Columbia in New Westminster,” Duthie said.

‘Adds a lot of stress’

While Duthie said vacancies aren’t diminishing SPD’s service level, both he and Murdock said they’re affecting members, who are dealing with an increasingly complex workload.

“They’re delivering more overtime because there’s not available folks to take the next shift. As you can imagine, that adds a lot of stress,” Murdock said.

The department has several support services for its members and recently implemented a requirement for all staff to have mental health check-ins with a trained professional of their choice. SPD covers the cost.

“Things have changed. Demands have changed. Expectations have changed,” Duthie said.

“We have to find the right staffing numbers so officers are not overburdened every single shift they report for duty.”