Fair enough, but to me this is another one of those things that represents another gross over expenditure (in a long list). The occasions a vehicle like this is needed are far and few between..If it gets to a point where it's needed, call the army, it's probably a revolution and, we the people don't need tools like this used against us anyways.
Carbines sure, I was surprised they didn't have them already. I doubt it would have made much a difference in the Moncton senario as the role they would have played was grossly exaggerated.
I've said it many times, Canada is a VERY SAFE country. Our public safety budget is grossly bloated and needs a TON of fat tooken off. This is an easy place to cut funding aswell, the public just needs to see the RCMP propaganda and scare tactics for what it is. If we cut the RCMP/CBSA budgets by 90% noone would notice, aside from the nice surprise when we do our taxes! All the hard to employ D- students can find work in private industries instead, or perhaps the military, as we are falling short of our obligations in that regard. Alas, the sheep scare easily, that's why we are where we are at.
We should be utilizing a ton of bait vehicles, bait bikes, equipment ect. Police should focus strictly on getting thieves and violent offenders off the street. If someone broke into my house and stole my Xbox I'd expect the police to come take fingerprints and vigorously follow up. Yet they don't, it's not ###y or exciting work as driving around in tanks with all the latest gadgets snooping into everyday folks lives. Any down to earth good cop will say, "police work is not like in the movies", it's bland and monotonous going after thieves with occasional domestic assaults and violent offences. That's exactly how it should be, leave the military equipment to the army to use against foreign enemies or the occasional riot.
I've said it many times on there. The problem in Canada is the court system. We catch bad guys all the time, the courts won't keep them in jail.
These vehicles aren't ok to leave it on the army base and borrow when needed. Usually when these are needed, it's a right now situation. We all know how quick bureaucracy works. Then I'm assuming these aren't like a honda civic and are easy to drive. You need to be familiar with them, etc. They are a necessary evil. No not every detachment needs one. Not every municipality needs one. I'm pretty sure they're less common than some people even think they are. And are used more than people realize, at least for us. The times I know of, I never saw any articles in the news about it.
We can have all the bait vehicles etc that we want. The problem is this country is positively embarrassing in how we treat criminals. I could go catch the same guy every month, the courts just give them the revolving door treatment.
Slashing the budgets by 90%? You're in dream land. The RCMP is already the cheapest game in town, and the most understaffed, covering the largest areas. BUT if we could start talking, get someone to go into the RCMP budgets and start trimming the fat, there would be a significant amount of change that could be done, streamlining, just plain doing things smarter. It wouldn't cost less, but we surely could do things better. Bring in the two Bobs and start asking everyone "so what is it that you do here?" and cutting. My favourite example is why do we have police officers on the musical ride. Hire people who like horsies, pay the less, dress them up in pretty red serge and leave them in Ottawa for 20 years. Instead of moving police officers there for 2-4 years, paying them a police officer salary, spending 60,000$ for their move in and out of there.
Hire civilian members to do non policing jobs, like media relations, etc etc. This outfit has a supervisor or NCO for every 2 constables. That's insane.
Take the fly in spots and put them on mine schedules. Make larger hub detachments so you don't have 5 guys sitting in Kyle, Saskatchewan picking their noses while other detachments are run off their feet. Paying 10000$ a year to band aid fix houses that could be permanently solved with a 15000$ fix. There are literally thousands of things we could do that would both save money and give better service, but there's no will to make it happen. I could come up with ideas all day. Money is being wasted because it's thrown at the same problems over and over and over again, in an organization that historically does not like change or innovation.
But again, it rolls down to the public needs to call for a complete reform on the RCMP organizational issues, the court and jail system. It's positively amazing what taking 5-10 problems out of a community or reserve can do to stop crime, what waste being tethered to the treasury board is, etc.
Armoured vehicles are the last thing that should be raising questions with things in the policing and *ahem*, "Justice", systems in this country.
