Questions raised about use of peace officers to patrol New Brunswick highways

Peace officers who work for the New Brunswick Department of Justice and Public Safety may be handling more of the non-commercial traffic enforcement on the province’s highways, but it’s not clear exactly how much they’re doing or where it’s happening.

“If you’re going to give people who are not police officers more authority so that they are acting like police officers, shouldn’t people know that?” said criminologist Michael Boudreau of St. Thomas University.

Boudreau’s comments come after a meeting this fall between municipal officials in southwestern New Brunswick and Public Safety Minister Kris Austin.

At the meeting, Austin said, “some of the highways now are being done by Public Safety,” Eastern Charlotte Coun. Darrell Tidd told Information Morning Saint John during an interview about RCMP expansion plans.

CBC News requested interviews with the Department of Justice and Public Safety and with the New Brunswick RCMP to find out more about how these peace officers are operating in collaboration with police.

No interviews were granted, but several communications officers provided prepared answers to some questions by email.

There are now 63 positions provincewide, said one email, from Sarah Bustard, a spokesperson for Justice and Public Safety.

That’s a big increase since 2018, when CBC first reported on commercial vehicle enforcement officers issuing speeding tickets to non-commercial motorists. At the time, there were 17 “patrol units,” across the province, usually consisting of one officer.

“This is an important change in terms of how policing is conducted in the province,” said Boudreau.

“From my perspective, what they’re trying to do is create a provincial police force on the cheap,” he said.

Since 2019, the budget for the departmental division that these officers fall under increased to $20 million from about $17 million, budget documents show.

“Government investments resulted in increased resources in this program,” Bustard said by email.

“It’s been creeping,” Boudreau said.

Several years ago, conservation officers and other public safety officers received firearms training to deal with aggressive hunters, he said.

Then, during the pandemic, peace officers were given authority to enforce border restrictions. And recently, public safety officers were equipped with more firearms, Boudreau said.

The criminal justice system researcher questioned whether “due diligence” has been done.

Documents posted on the Justice and Public Safety website on Nov. 21 indicate the feasibility of starting a provincial police force to replace the RCMP was studied in December 2021 and January 2022 by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

It came up with a cost estimate of about $258.6 million over a 10-year transition period. 

Even though the Higgs government has ruled out starting a provincial force, “they’re sort of trying to do it piecemeal,” said Boudreau.

Asked for the public safety minister’s response to that assertion, the department said in an email that there is a distinction between its highway safety enforcement “law enforcement agency,” and a full-fledged police force.

“They have no responsibilities [for the policing of] any of the many New Brunswick municipalities or communities,” the department said.

The provincial government may not be calling them “police officers,” but they’re being tasked with “police-type jobs,” said Boudreau.

These include reducing speeding, reckless and impaired driving, and deaths on trails and roads, according to a statement from a department communications officer.

Meanwhile, they don’t have the same authority to arrest someone in every circumstance, noted Boudreau.

“And they’re certainly not trained in the law the way police officers are,” he said.

The department countered that it took “extensive diligence” to ensure highway safety officers have the training and tools required “to excel” in their duties.

To that end, it said it conducted research and engaged with a number of parties, including WorkSafeNB, the Atlantic Police Academy, the peace officers’ union and New Brunswick police chiefs.

Highway safety enforcement officers need a one-year course in law enforcement and six years of law enforcement experience, said an email from communications officer Coreen Enos.

They also require certification training at the Atlantic Police Academy “in areas such as mental health, crisis intervention and de-escalation, law, use of force, firearm and intermediate weapons, police vehicle operations and scenario-based response training,” she said.

From my perspective, what they’re trying to do is create a provincial police force on the cheap.​​​​​​– Criminologist Michael Boudreau

They are offered further training in speed enforcement, screening devices, field sobriety testing and drug recognition.

They must be re-certified annually in use of force, weapons and scenario-based response. 

And they have access to the same databases as police, said Enos, so that if they pull someone over they would be able to see whether the person had any outstanding warrants, for example.

The province and the RCMP both say the “main” or “primary” responsibility of highway safety enforcement officers is commercial vehicle enforcement.

However, a provincial official said they also “form part of an integrated tactical traffic enforcement unit with the RCMP and support all police agencies when those services are requested and required.”

A statement from an RCMP spokesperson referred to the peace officers as being separate from its own “tactical traffic enforcement unit” but said they “frequently” partner and welcome the opportunity to do so.

There’s also some support for the arrangement from rural areas that are struggling with petty crime and access to regular police services.

“We don’t need the RCMP policing the highways,” said Tidd, the Eastern Charlotte councillor. “We need them to spend more time in the community.”

But when asked whether peace officers will help take some of the workload off the RCMP, neither the Public Safety Department nor the Mounties indicated that they would or that it’s an objective.

“If not, why are we doing it?” asked Boudreau, referring to the expanded peace officer ranks.

Asked for statistics that would give some indication of how things are going with the expanded and combined Highway Safety Enforcement Officer force, the department sent links to its annual reports. 

These reports do not include any statistics on warnings or tickets issued to non-commercial vehicles and Enos did not respond to a followup email asking for that information.

Another big issue Boudreau has is about oversight.

The New Brunswick Police Commission is not set up to investigate complaints about the conduct of highway safety peace officers.

“That’s definitely a concern,” said Boudreau, “especially if these officers are armed and something goes wrong.”

A bill before the legislature would make them subject to commission oversight, said Enos. 

“The department plans on that happening in 2024,” she wrote.

The same bill would make these peace officers subject to independent SIRT investigations in the event of serious incidents involving officers.