By Steve Hubrecht
The Columbia Valley will get a new commander in a few months’ time.
Columbia Valley RCMP Corporal Jeff Witzke told Invermere council members as much during his quarterly RCMP report at the Tuesday, April 11 meeting.
Former Columbia Valley Sgt. Darren Kakuno left at the end of last year, taking a senior advisory non-commissioned officer post in Cranbrook.
A new sergeant — Ed DeJong — has been hired and is expected to arrive some time in May or June, explained Witzke. DeJong is currently working as a commander with the RCMP’s Tsay Keh Dene detachment in northern B.C.
“He’s (the new sergeant) waiting to sell his house, and as soon as he does he’ll be moving to the valley,” added Witzke.
The Columbia Valley lost one constable in January to a transfer, lost another to an injury “for some time” in February, and will lose a third to transfer to Cranbrook in June, said Witzke.
“We are a little skinny now,” the corporal said of the local detachment’s short staffed situation. He joked that scheduling the detachment members is now so complicated that “it is a full-time job.”
The Kicking Horse Canyon closure began on Tuesday, April 11, noted Witzke.
This closure of the TransCanada Highway between Field and Golden shuts the national highway for several weeks every spring and fall. All cross-country traffic is instead re-routed through the Columbia Valley, down Highway 93 from Castle Junction to Radium Hot Springs and then up to Golden on Highway 95.
The shutdowns send the volume of traffic passing through the valley soaring, and the first few closures (in spring and fall 2021) saw a dramatic spike in the number of accidents, some of which were horrific.
The last closure, in fall 2022, was not as bad, although there still was a clear rise in traffic complaints and collisions, said Witzke. He added that local RCMP are hoping the spring 2023 closure will be more similar to the fall 2022 closure than the 2021 closures.
Additional funding for B.C. Highway Patrols on Highway 93 through Kootenay National Park in fall 2022 played a big role in making that closure better, explained Witzke.
“The visibility was no doubt increased and numerous excessive speeders were taken off the road,” he said.
Still, Witzke acknowledged that many valley residents dread the TransCanada closures.
Locals seem to now accept that it’s going to happen, but are clearly “waiting until 2024, when it’s done,” he said.
The Columbia Valley RCMP have cracked down effectively on local property crime offenders, Witzke told council, but trouble still occasionally comes from thieves (some operating as individuals, some working as a group) who come from out of town and go on quick stealing sprees, usually targeting unlocked vehicles and unlocked sheds.
These are hard for the local RCMP to combat because “they (the thieves) are typically gone from town before people even know anything’s been stolen” he said. “Our message to the public, again, is lock your sheds, lock your vehicles, and don’t keep your credit card, your bank card and other valuables in your vehicle.”
In the January to March 2023 quarter, RCMP responded to 177 calls for service in Invermere (56 in January, 67 in February, and 54 in March). This is a significant drop from the 200 calls during the same quarter in 2022 and the 238 calls in the same quarter in 2021.
The drop may be a result of the ending of COVID-19 restrictions, which had an isolating effect on many people, and which may have played a role in mental health calls, explained Witzke.
In the January to March quarter in 2019, a year before the pandemic, there were 166 calls for service in Invermere. In 2020, in the same quarter, as the pandemic took hold, that figure rose to 192. It then hit 238 in the January to March quarter in 2021 with restrictions at their height, before beginning to trend down in 2022, when restrictions started to loosen.
