The Policeman's Blog

They even have a website (don't skip the intro). It's one of three bars in the small town of Morinville, about half an hour's drive north of Edmonton, and just inside the city's commuter belt.

By coincidence, I arrested someone for warrants issued by the RCMP detatchment at Morinville. Some warrants get issued when someone fails to pay the relevant fine for breaking a provincial law, so you can end up dealing with someone for dog-fouling or fishing without a licence. At the other end of the scale, a 'Canada wide' warrant would get issued for a very serious offence like murder. My preferred warrant is called a 'Form 21' and is for immediate payment of a fine; there is a dollar amount or number of days in jail so if you can't pay the fine in cash, you go straight to jail AND there's no paperwork.

In the UK (correct me if I'm wrong) it's a nightmare trying to put someone on PNC (Police National Computer) as wanted, but over here, you go round to their home address, make a couple of other enquiries then put out a warrant for them - case closed. You can't put someone on as wanted if you only 'suspect' them and want to interview them, you have to actually have enough evidence to charge them. If you only have suspects, you'll generally close the file there and then, unless it's a serious matter.

Most warrants issued within the Province of Alberta are only valid within Alberta itself, so someone might be wanted for theft in British Columbia, but we can't arrest them in Alberta (obviously). It's not like Devon and Cornwall Police locking up your shoplifter so that you can drive down from say, Newcastle, and interview them. The distances here are immense, so if my shoplifter goes on holiday in Whitehorse (in Yukon) and gets picked up by the RCMP, I'm a 2385km camel ride away.

I've never met Sean Price, the chief constable of Cleveland, but it seems unlikely to me that he's worth £200,000 a year, however good he is. Still, it's comforting to know that the taxpayer is helping to put his kids through private school, isn't it?
The Times has done some digging into a number of chiefs' pay packages.
They've also found out that Sir Norman Bettison (W Yorks) has a 'unique package' worth about £55,000 a year, Ian McPherson (Norfolk) got £70,000 more than his £126,000 salary in 2007-08 and Essex's popular Roger Baker was awarded a golden handcuffs package to persuade him to stay.
As well as private school fees, car allowances and stamp duty, more dosh was handed out to various chiefs for relocation packages, satellite TV and 'lifestyle coaching' (whatever that is).
I suspect the thing that will bug taxpayers the most is the money given for 'home security'.
It would be nice it we could all have some of that.
At the same time, Sir Hugh Orde has warned that police forces will have to make cuts.
It would take forever to list the lunatic nonsense which could be scrapped in every police area up and down the land (flip flops, speeding cyclists, cardboard cops, lollipops etc etc etc).
Suffice it to say, if the forces stopped wasting money phoning people up to ask how they feel about interacting with the police, sacked their diversity co-ordinators, burned half the forms and concentrated on harrassing known criminals, an awful lot of the crime that real people in the real world are worried about could be dealt with overnight (with assistance from the courts and jails, of course).

BREATH-HOLDER

It's a sad reflection on Canadian humour (or is that 'humor'?) that while the idea itself is well executed, it's not as funny as it could have been.

When we join up, we all have these photos taken (in front of the flag, hat tucked under your arm) so that there's something other than your Facebook profile picture to put out to the media in the event of your demise. My picture has noticeably less brass in it.

News of the low morale failed to reach me before the news story, so I've been working away completely unaware of the growing crisis.

Inspector Gadget tells me that you are all having problems keeping cool whilst in your external body armour (or is that 'armor'?). You'll be pleased to know that we are issued with covert Second Chance body armour and 'x-static high performance' T-Shirts to go underneath! Hope that goes some way to making you all feel better.

Happy Canada Day!

Here's a picture I took yesterday while I was working. It shows the Saskatchewan River running though Edmonton and is taken from this location here:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=53.543113,-113.445425&spn=0.021115,0.076818&z=14


Forest Heights Park is in my district and unlike many parks in the UK isn't full of children getting off their faces on alcopops.

The river is in a steep sided valley as it runs through the city, and not used by shipping because it's too shallow. Next year, I'm getting a kayak and going to paddle along the river for a couple of days, packing my gear and camping on the bank.

Next month I'm off to Snake Indian Falls for a few days.

I've just got back from a two week holiday to the UK with Mrs C. It was quite strange going back after just over a year and a half away. Nothing much has changed and it was good to see family and friends once more. We hired a car at the airport and ended up driving from Manchester, to Birmingham, to Bristol, to Norfolk and back and found the amount of traffic amazing, even outside the cities. That said, there seemed to be a 'blitz spirit' amongst the drivers that you don't get in Alberta: the general standard of driving was very high and almost everyone was very considerate, resigned to the traffic jams.

Still, it was good to be back, Canada has now become home in such a short time.

This weekend we're having a squad barbeque out towards Tofield and Mrs C and I shall be celebrating nine years of marriage at Edmonton's premiere dining experience.