"As we know now, in six years from now, they are going to withdraw- the RCMP is going to withdraw from municipal and provincial policing," Dieppe Mayor Yvon Lapierre said matter-of-factly on Information Morning Moncton last week.

"The RCMP's not going to be here doing municipal policing. We got that memo, as the old saying goes."

If accurate, the comments would be a significant revelation about the future of policing for not just the Moncton region.

RCMP serve as provincial and municipal police forces through contract policing agreements in eight provinces, three territories and around 150 municipalities across the country. That includes much of New Brunswick and the Moncton region, where a debate has resurfaced about whether to stick with the Codiac Regional RCMP.

While there have been recommendations the force stop contract policing and focus on federal policing, which includes national security and drug investigations, there has been nothing announced.

CBC attempted to verify the mayor's comments with municipal, provincial and federal officials.

RCMP won't comment

RCMP headquarters in Ottawa wouldn't comment on the mayor's remarks.

The RCMP directed questions to Public Safety Canada, the federal ministry that oversees the Mounties. Minister Bill Blair did not provide an interview.

"The department has no awareness of a plan referred to by Mayor Lapierre regarding the RCMP service agreements," Tim Warmington, a spokesperson for Public Safety Canada, said in an email Friday.

New Brunswick's Department of Public Safety, responsible for the provincial RCMP contract, did not respond to a request for comment.

Pat Bouchard, the National Police Federation's Atlantic region director, said the RCMP union had not heard anything other than Lapierre's comments on the morning show.

"I have no knowledge of that," Charles Léger, the chair of the Codiac Regional Policing Authority board that oversees the RCMP force in the Moncton area, said of the Dieppe mayor's comments.

Mayor stands by comments

Lapierre stood by his comments in a phone call Thursday. He declined to say who provided the information, only calling them a "reliable source."

Lapierre said his comments were based on information he heard during a meeting attended by other New Brunswick municipal politicians over the summer.

Dieppe Mayor Yvon Lapierre stood by his comments about the end of provincial and municipal policing by the RCMP. (Pierre Fournier/CBC News )

Moncton Mayor Dawn Arnold first told CBC by email that she was "fairly taken aback" by what her counterpart in Dieppe said.

"I certainly don't have any official confirmation from any level of government that this is indeed the situation," Arnold said.

Asked if she recalled hearing the comments at the meeting Lapierre described, she then said it came up in passing.

"Yes, I was present at a meeting where this was mentioned," Arnold said in an email Friday.

"It is not my place to speak on behalf of the province. I don't believe that anything is close to being decided, I think that everyone is looking at options and trying to see what could work for the province and communities, whatever that may end up being."

Moncton Mayor Dawn Arnold says she was present at a meeting when the idea was mentioned. (Shane Magee/CBC)

Arnold didn't respond to a request to further clarify when the meeting occurred or who mentioned the information. 

Alex Scholten, the president of the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick, said there was a gathering of various municipal leaders July 10-12 about municipal reform with Daniel Allain, New Brunswick's minister of local governance reform.

He said there was a lot of discussion about the RCMP at the meeting, though it wasn't clear if it was the same meeting Lapierre was referring to.

"There was definitely discussion about RCMP services, definitely discussion about dissatisfaction among municipal members, and definitely a discussion on what our members are talking about in terms of what alternatives may be in the future," Scholten said in an interview.

"But definitely nothing, at least that I heard at all - and I was in the discussions that [Arnold and Lapierre] were in - with anyone from the province saying that they are looking at this, or the feds saying anything about it."

Allain did not respond to requests for comment.

Daniel Allain, New Brunswick's minister of local governance reform, didn't respond to requests for comment. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)

The RCMP effectively serve as the provincial police force in New Brunswick under a 20-year contract signed in 2012. 

The contract allows either the federal government or the province to terminate it on March 31 of any year during the term of the agreement with two years' notice.

A similar contract is in place for the Codiac Regional RCMP, which polices Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview. 

A Moncton councillor has introduced a motion to be debated Nov. 1 calling for the city to review whether to keep the Codiac RCMP.

At the provincial level, a motion passed at the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick annual meeting this month calls on the province to study policing options in light of rising RCMP costs.

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki told a committee that a review of contract policing would take place. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

Brenda Lucki, the RCMP commissioner, told the House of Commons standing committee on public safety and national security last summer that there is a federal review of contract policing. It's unclear if that review has been completed.

The Liberal-led committee issued its report in June this year. It recommended the government to examine ending contract policing, saying it should "work with the provinces, territories and municipalities to help those interested establish their own provincial and territorial police services."

It would be up to the federal government, which didn't answer questions for this story, to decide whether to implement the recommendation.

Moncton has finally won back the right to control its own policing. Four years ago, the city refused to give up its municipal police force in favour of regional RCMP service. So the Liberal government of Frank McKenna changed the Police Act and forced the Mounties on Moncton. Those changes are now being repealed.

The deal signed Monday between the province, Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview creates a 12-member Codiac Regional Policing Authority. It gives the communities full control of policing. It also puts an end to a bitter battle over community policing.

In 1997, Moncton rejected the then-Liberal government's decision to have the Mounties take over policing in the Codiac Region. The public, unions and police supported the council's stand, but to no avail. In 1998, the province amended legislation and gave policing responsibility in Greater Moncton to the province. Police forces in Moncton and Dieppe were disbanded and the Mounties took over.

On Monday, the Lord government lived up to a campaign promise and repealed the amendments. Control of the police will now go back to local authorities.

Although the switch to the RCMP caused some controversy, it's unlikely the new arrangement will have any immediate effect on the Mounties' role in Greater Moncton.

It's certainly not on the agenda of the town of Riverview," says Mayor Bruce Fitch. "As I've said, we've committed to this at this point in time and we're going to continue to go down that road.

Those who signed the agreement say not only the Greater Moncton area benefits. The new amendments take away the province's right to control policing anywhere in New Brunswick. So if a community wants to switch its police services, the choice... and decision... is up to that community alone.

The motion by councillors Daniel Bourgeois and Paul Richard cited "significant" salary increases resulting from the RCMP's first union contract and broader provincial and national discussions about the future of the RCMP.

"What would serve us best? What would be the best model?" Bourgeois said in French during Monday's council meeting before the vote.

The motion calls for the city to hire an independent expert next year to update a study completed in 2010.

Moncton Coun. Daniel Bourgeois introduced the motion that calls for reviewing police services. (Shane Magee/CBC)

That study looked at reverting to a municipal police force, changing to an RCMP service that only polices Moncton, or keeping the Codiac RCMP that polices Dieppe and Riverview as well. That study recommended the status quo.

The debate about what police force to use has occasionally resurfaced after the New Brunswick government forced the city to switch from a municipal force to the RCMP in the late 1990s.

Moncton Mayor Dawn Arnold said the first step will be to define what the new study will examine.

"Then, looking into what is best for probably all three municipalities for safety, security and from a fiscal perspective," Arnold told reporters after the meeting.

"What is the future of policing? Those are things we all need to be looking at right now and I look forward to the whole process."

No timeline

Riverview councillors last week added a line to the town's strategic plan calling for working with Moncton and Dieppe on a review of policing options.

Bourgeois suggested the review could also involve Riverview and Dieppe, and potentially cost-share the work with those municipalities.

No timeline has been set for the review. City Manager Marc Landry said it will likely take some time to draft terms of reference that council will need to accept.

A city staff report said the 2010 study cost $160,000 and a new version could cost upwards of $200,000, depending on its scope.

The motion was introduced Oct. 18, but couldn't be debated until Monday evening. 

The motion was amended Monday to remove a line calling for halting work on a new police station "until the fate of the RCMP as a municipal policing services provider is determined more definitively."

Bourgeois said that issue was decided two weeks ago when council voted 7-4 to issue a construction tender for the project estimated to cost $57.2 million.

Bourgeois and Richard were among the four who voted against the motion that evening.

     A rendering of the Codiac Regional RCMP station planned for Albert Street in Moncton estimated to cost $57.2 million. (Submitted by City of Moncton)

Last week, Coun. Paulette Theriault told CBC News she'd support Monday's motion if it was amended to remove the section about pausing work on the new building.

"Even if I don't agree with the whole motion, I find that there are parts of it that are really, really important, especially everything that addresses the future police force, policing services and so on," Theriault said before the motion was amended to remove the halt on the new station.

Theriault was among the seven councillors who voted in favour of the new building, saying that the existing station on Main Street is unsafe. Several councillors said a new building would be required for whichever police force the city may have in the future.

Following the 2010 review triggered by concerns about the rising cost of the RCMP, a 20-year contract between the Mounties and the Codiac Regional Policing Authority was signed. The contract allows either party to withdraw from the agreement by providing two years notice.

That's the conclusion of a report presented to Moncton councillors this month by RPL Architects, which the city hired to design the station for the Codiac Regional RCMP. It says further study would be required to verify its overall conclusions. 

The question of whether the building designed to meet Mountie standards could be used by another force has come up amid increased discussion about the future of the RCMP in the region and across the province.

"If we build a building only for the RCMP and then the feds decide to pull out, we are stuck in that building?" Coun. Bryan Butler said during a Moncton council meeting last week. "What do we do then? We really have then to spend more money."

The idea of reviewing policing locally and provincially has repeatedly surfaced in recent weeks.

A motion passed at the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick annual meeting this month calls on the province to study policing options in light of rising RCMP costs. 

Dieppe's mayor has suggested, though it hasn't been confirmed as accurate, that the RCMP will no longer offer provincial and municipal policing services within six years. 

During a committee meeting Monday, Riverview councillors amended the town's strategic plan to include a line about working with Moncton and Dieppe to review local policing options. 

Riverview Coun. Heath Johnson said there's been a lot of discussion about who will provide policing services in the future. He said the review could ultimately suggest staying with Codiac RCMP.

On Monday, Moncton councillors will debate a motion by councillors Daniel Bourgeois and Paul Richard calling for the city to halt work on the new RCMP station — though construction hasn't started yet — until there's clarity on which force will use the building.

The motion was introduced last week but procedurally couldn't be debated and voted on until the Nov. 1 meeting.

                     A rendering of the lobby of the proposed Codiac Regional RCMP station. (City of Moncton/Submitted)

The motion calls for the city to hire an expert on policing services in 2022 to re-examine whether the city should retain the Mounties.

"How can you make a decision on [spending] $57 million-plus without having that in your plan, knowing how many members you're going to need to have in this building?" Richard said in an interview. 

The answer to whether another force could use the building depends on the policing model.

John Pepper with RPL Architects told councillors the building was designed to accommodate up to 376 sworn RCMP officers and civilian staff over a 25-year span. 

A 15-page by RPL Architects report concludes a new regional force, covering Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview, could use the building as designed in the short term, but "it would not meet long-term needs, potentially requiring expansion in the future."

The RCMP rely on specialized units like forensics located elsewhere in Moncton and support services at J Division headquarters in Fredericton. Those wouldn't be located in the new building, so space for them wasn't included in the design. 

But a new regional or municipal police force headquartered in the planned building would require those units and services.

Moncton has already purchased and prepared land on Albert Street — costs included in the $57.2 million estimate — for a police station to replace an older building on Main Street. (Shane Fowler/CBC)

The report says the building could be expanded westward into a surface parking lot, though that would likely require building a costly parking garage to replace lost parking spaces.

The report's conclusion differs if it's a provincial police model like the Ontario Provincial Police.

Under such a model, the current design is considered "adequate."

Under a provincial model, services like forensics and a tactical team, as with the RCMP, could be shared over a wider area and wouldn't necessarily be located in the Moncton station, the report says.

Pepper was hesitant to say how much it could cost to change the building to switch from RCMP to another police force's standards. He said many building components such as common areas and interview rooms would remain suitable.

The 7-4 council vote Monday means the city will issue construction tenders and sign a 30-year lease for the facility with the Codiac Regional Policing Authority, which oversees the Codiac RCMP.

Moncton would pay for and then own the 6,680-square-metre building on Albert Street. It would replace the 43-year-old station on Main Street that currently houses officers serving Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview.

Moncton staff told councillors the existing station's electrical system can't handle a toaster and a microwave being used at the same time, has leaky roofs and doesn't meet post-disaster standards because it is in a flood zone.

"As a pastor in the community, I want to be careful of my words," Coun. Dave Steeves said near the end of a three-hour discussion. "The current RCMP station is a hellhole."

Councillors also heard that a review last month found "serious failures in security" related to the holding cells. No details were provided. The policing authority's budget includes $1.5 million next year because of that issue. 

Codiac Regional RCMP have 147 members and police Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview from a 43-year-old building on Main Street. (Shane Magee/CBC)

Mayor Dawn Arnold told reporters it was a historic vote after nearly a decade of planning.

"We've been at this for a long time, but it was very clearly demonstrated tonight by literally everyone who spoke that the current building is not sustainable," Arnold said.

"It is not safe. It is a risk to the members. It is a risk to our community. So something had to be done, and council voted in favour of going ahead with the tender and building the new building."

While the motion centred on whether to move ahead with the plans for a new structure, it became entangled with concerns about the future of the RCMP. 

Councillors Shawn Crossman, Daniel Bourgeois, Bryan Butler and Paul Richard voted against the motion.

"I can't support this resolution because there are too many unknowns," Bourgeois said. "I'm not against the project, I'm against this project at this time."

Questions about Mounties' future

Bourgeois later introduced a motion that will be considered Nov. 1, calling for a halt to construction of the building "until the fate of the RCMP as a municipal policing services provider is determined more definitively."

The motion revives a debate that has occasionally resurfaced after the province forced the city to switch from a municipal force to the RCMP in the late 1990s.

The motion calls for the city to hire an expert on policing services in 2022 to re-examine whether the city should retain the Mounties in light of rising salaries and the possibility the federal government could change the RCMP mandate.

A motion approved at a Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick this month calls for the province to study "the most effective and efficient way to provide policing that meets or exceeds minimum policing standards in the province and in its municipalities."

John Pepper of RPL Architects, who have been hired to design the building, told councillors the station would likely be too small over the long-term for any force other than the RCMP.

Moncton has already purchased and prepared land on Albert Street for the new station. (Shane Fowler/CBC)

He said that's because the RCMP have specialized units like forensics and a tactical team based elsewhere that another force would need. 

Multiple councillors said whichever force uses the station, the current building is no longer suitable and needs to be replaced. 

Sherry Trenholm, the city's director of municipal facilities, told councillors that the city had avoided undertaking costly upgrades of the existing station because it had been planning for a new station for years.

She said it still needs an estimated $4.6 million in repairs by 2025.

No tax hike, staff suggest

The $57.2-million cost estimate includes land the city already purchased, planning and design costs, new equipment and furniture for the station, and public art.

The city is counting on receiving a $3 million grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities that requires construction to be complete by 2024.

The city also plans to have $20 million saved in a reserve account to offset the debt required for construction. 

"As such, there is not an expected increase in overall costs within the City of Moncton operating budget upon completion of the facility and thus no anticipated requirement for a tax increase to support the new facility," a staff report to council states. 

Riverview and Dieppe would cover Moncton's cost through rental payments under an agreement the communities have already signed.

The building is designed to last 25 years and accommodate up to 376 officers and civilian staff by 2044. The Codiac RCMP telecommunications centre, now in Dieppe, will move to the new facility.

Full approval has yet to be given for construction. Another vote is expected in January to award the construction tender. 

Construction would start in April 2022 and finish in 2024.

The Codiac Regional RCMP's senior officer warned Moncton residents of the potential problems that could result by reverting to a municipal police force at a public meeting on Monday night.

Moncton councillors held their second public meeting into the future of the city's relationship with the RCMP.

Councillors are studying whether to stick with the Codiac Regional RCMP, set up a local RCMP detachment or switch back to a city police force.

Codiac RCMP Supt. Wayne Gallant said the proposed municipal force would be risky.

He said the plan wouldn't have enough officers to provide for proper drug enforcement, crime scene investigation duties or major investigations.

"As the chief of the current service, as someone whose responsibility currently is to do all I can to maximize that level of safety and security under the current model, this causes me concern," Gallant said.

"I think citizens throughout Moncton should be equally concerned if this model were ever to be implemented the risk are extraordinarily high with minimal cost savings."

Gallant said the proposed municipal police force would be under-resourced and the proposed budget is unrealistic.

City council asked members of the community on Monday night for their input on the future of policing in Moncton.

Local force cheaper: group

Mark Fenity was one of the citizens at the public meeting who thought it was unfair for the provincial government to get rid of the Moncton Police Force roughly 13 years ago.

"This is an opportunity after 12 years to right that wrong. It's taken that long to right that wrong because of the long contract we have with the RCMP," Fenity said.

Greg Murphy said he remembers his father who spent 45 years as a police officer in Moncton.

He said he finds RCMP officers on patrol are not friendly.

"I don't know if they get any training in their human relations but they always seem to be aloof, that we the public are their enemy," Murphy said.

"I don't think that should be happening here."

Most supporters of a municipal force say it would cheaper.

Dean Secord, the president of the New Brunswick Police Association, said this week the city would save roughly $5 million by switching to a municipal police force.

However, Gallant said in order for a local police force to be significantly cheaper than the RCMP, it would curtail staffing.

"You are substantially cutting the level of policing service currently being provided to the citizens of Moncton, in fact it is a lower level of service than existed in 1998," he said.

Moncton began discussing its policing options earlier in 2010 after years of concerns that the city was paying too much for the service.

Dieppe and Riverview agreed to a restructuring of the cost-sharing agreement.

Each community's cost will be based on a formula that includes population, assessment and calls for service.

By 2012, Moncton's share of the Codiac RCMP budget will drop to 70 per cent from 74 per cent, which would save an estimated $1.2 million.