Regina-Wascana Member of Parliament Michael Kram has launched a website and an online petition supporting the RCMP Depot.
Kram’s launch comes after the Mass Casualty Commission investigation into the 2020 Nova Scotia shootings recommended that the depot be eliminated and replaced by a Canadian Police College elsewhere in the country.
“There is no minimizing the 2020 Nova Scotia tragedy nor the importance of the Mass Casualty Commission’s work,” Kram said. “However, while the report may have had some good recommendations, I would not be the first to observe that its recommendation to close Depot was a significant over-reach.”
“I hate to talk in cliches, but there are two that perfectly describe this recommendation: Throwing the baby out with the bathwater and reinventing the wheel,” Kram continued. “RCMP Depot in Regina is a world-class police training facility. To dismantle it in order to build new facilities somewhere else makes zero sense.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the federal government will look ‘carefully’ at the recommendations.
“There’s no question there need to be changes, and there will be,” Trudeau said. “But we will take the time to get those right.”
Kram said that closing the depot would be an unpopular position.
“Scott Moe opposes it. Carla Beck opposes it. My Regina federal colleagues, Andrew Scheer and Warren Steinley, oppose it,” he added. “This is not a left-wing or right-wing thing. It’s a Regina thing. This is a cause that all of us in the city can and should get behind.”
