Many citizens and others have raised questions about an expensive armoured vehicle to be acquired by police in the city of Fredericton, New Brunswick.
The city council recently approved police requests to spend almost $350,000 on an armoured truck for the relatively quiet and small city of only about 57,000 souls.
Although marketed as a ‘tactical” vehicle, police forces call it a “rescue” vehicle.
Many major cities in Canada have purchased such armoured vehicles to cope with potentially dangerous scenarios, while critics see it as yet another indication of the militarization of Canadian police, similar to what’s been happening in the US. Many Canadian police forces have also recently adopted military assault rifles, although they call “patrol carbines”.
As has been the case with other cities across Canada, Fredericton Police Chief Leanne Fitch said of the need for such a vehicle, “We have to be prepared for a worst-case scenario”.
Kevin Walby, a criminologist from at University of Manitoba, has been watching the use of armoured vehicles by police spread across the country. Quoted in the St Catharines newspaper, he said, “The vehicle is essentially a tank — and there isn’t a lot of research on whether the escalation of force stimulates the chaos the police say they are trying to prevent”. He added that the public should be alarmed when such vehicles are used by police for what he considers regular policing duties, even if it is a high-risk activity such as serving a search warrant in a drug investigation.
Calgary police say their vehicle is used several times a month, one such use was during the city flooding the heavy armoured truck waded through the water to pick up stranded people. Other cities choose not to divulge how often and for what purposes their armoured vehicles are used.
Michael Boudreau teaches criminology at St. Thomas University in the city. In reaction to the Fredericton agreement to purchase the armoured truck, he told CBC that calling the armoured truck a rescue vehicle is done to soften the image.
“Rescue means it’s going to be part of public safety, light armoured means that perhaps the police are going to be far more aggressive than what they need to be in the context of community policing.”
- Additional information- sources
- St Catharines Standard- B Sawchuck –Sept 2016
- CBC –E Fraser Dec 2016- Chief defends purchase
- Yahoo News- Boudreau reaction
- CBC- J Gill- Dec 2016- Boudreau
- Huffington Post-Jan 2016- H De Sarkar (Opinion-militarization of police)
- Terradyne -APC /tactical vehicles
- National Observer- Oct 2016 Opinion- police vehicles
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