The NWT’s top police officer says RCMP should create a “response unit” to send extra help between communities as they try to cope with drug dealers.
Chief Supt Syd Lecky, who arrived in the NWT from Kamloops in the fall of 2022, was speaking on CBC North’s Trailbreaker as he prepares to leave for a job in Timmins 18 months later.
Even as the NWT’s commanding officer, Lecky told the CBC he can’t move officers freely between communities to wherever the threat is most urgent.
“Contrary to popular belief, I, as the commanding officer, don’t have the ability to just move resources. I don’t have the ability to respond and take resources from one area and move it to another area where I see a need,” he said.
“As we’re seeing a need grow everywhere, what would be helpful is to have a response unit … to send to communities and provide support to the local RCMP in those jurisdictions.”
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Lecky said RCMP detachments in some communities are often so small that they are essentially “just policing offices” without the necessary expertise or training to face the biggest problems. Other communities have no detachment at all and are reliant on fly-in policing.
“The challenges for policing today compared to 10 or 20 years ago are much, much, much different,” Lecky said.
Leaders in Gamètì recently told Cabin Radio the Tłı̨chǫ community’s council is attempting to banish at least one person over drug dealing, in part because the RCMP are perceived not to be able to act.
Gamètì has no full-time RCMP presence and no road into or out of the community, other than a briefly operational winter road. If something happens and no officers are there, police can be flown in to assist. Otherwise, they visit for regular patrols.
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“Five and a half days with no RCMP presence. So, the drug dealers have basically got this licence to do whatever they want to do,” said senior administrator Sherbaz Muhammad.
‘I was shocked’
Asked by the CBC’s Marc Winkler why the territory faces a drugs situation that is so hard to manage, Lecky said the problem extends “throughout the territory.”
“I was shocked, when I got here, to find that we had people from outside the territory that were showing up in Fort McPherson, Aklavik, it could be in any corner of our territory,” he said.
“They have a unique business model where they just show up and they take over someone’s home or they take advantage of our vulnerable people, and they start plying their trade. It’s not just in those communities. It’s everywhere, and it is probably the most significant challenge that I’ve seen. It’s not just an emerging thing and it’s something that I think we’re going to see for some time.”
Lecky drew a direct link between drugs and “the unprecedented homicides that we’ve had,” acknowledging there was an “inability to hold offenders accountable.”
“We have some challenges keeping people on bail when they’re in the accused category,” he said. “They don’t stop offending when they’re on bail, oftentimes, and they often come from other jurisdictions … violent offenders who have bail restrictions that are ignored, and they show up here to cause harm in our communities.
“It’s a significant pressure on our community members, community leaders, and certainly our police.”
The NWT’s incoming government has said it will make public safety a priority, with Premier RJ Simpson specifically singling out the territory’s RCMP as an area he wants to strengthen.
“I know the RCMP are doing what they can, but the tools they have traditionally used to combat drugs and gangs – those over the years have been eroded by changes to the criminal code, decisions of the Supreme Court,” Simpson told Cabin Radio last year.
“As a territorial government, we need to look at what we can do to give the RCMP and communities tools.”
