Rhino's Ramblings - Gotham City Spin

By Robert Thomas - Opinion/Commentary

The 1989 movie Batman painted a picture of an American Megaopolis - Gotham City - in decay.

A city where crime was running amuck and the very infrastructure and bedrock Gotham was built upon, the very bedrock of society, was literally in massive decay, A city where lunacy and crime abounded.

A city in need of a masked crime fighter - Batman - to arrive on the scene and clean the streets up.

A Batman who in reality was financed by his alter ego - Bruce Wayne - the orphaned industrialist who was not only there to clean the streets up but also to seek his revenge of his destroyed childhood.

So too was Moose Jaw City Council enhralled on Tuesday afternoon as the Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) was out in full force to present their annual budget request and like in Gotham City ask for sacks of cash in order to effectively clean up the streets.

There is no Bruce Wayne, there is no Batman with billions to burn, there is just you and me the taxpayer to foot the bill.

But like in the movie Batman in Moose Jaw there is a lot going on behind the scenes.

Although the MJPS appeared to be playing for a receptive Council crowd there was a bit of subterfuge going on as a larger contingent from the MJPS met with Council behind closed doors in an in-camera or secret meeting as part of the November 14, 2022 Executive Committee meeting.

In his presentation MJPS Chief Rick Bourassa even made light of the fact the last time he spoke before Council it was only for ten minutes and he would stay well within the 30 minutes allotted.

It didn’t take much of an effort to go back through the previous Council minutes to find when the last time the Chief spoke publicly to Council and how long it took. And no it was not for only ten minutes.

So how do I know the MJPS - in full force - spoke before Council in a closed to the public secret meeting?

Simple. I saw them there.

With the new meeting format the Council meeting runs first and then if they chose to go in-camera the majority of the media waits for the vote and then leaves.

There is a five minute break between the two meetings and during this break close to a dozen members of a delegation led by Chief Bourassa moved from the Scoop Lewry Room where they had been sitting in private to move into the gallery and then the meeting went in-camera and the media was kicked out.

So what did they discuss with Executive Committee on November 14th??? You guessed it their upcoming 2023 Budget.

I found this out through my sources at City Hall.

So yes, once again, we have the MJPS doing things out in the shadows when it comes to your tax dollars and you would be none the wiser if they had simply stayed inside the Scoop Lewry Room until the media left.

And yes despite the buzz the MJPS may want to create about how they are being open and transparent with how your tax dollars are spent that once again things are being done in a hidden vacuum and another major increase in their budget is about to pass without even one critical question being asked.

In my opinion the machinations of the top brass of the MJPS hasn’t changed in decades - despite the Chief stating the Force is transparent when it comes to financial items.

Believe me, in my opinion, they are not.

The MJPS has in reality been living in an insulated and segregated financial bubble for decades and sadly it remains so.

For instance take a look at the creation of the MJPS’s Tactical Team.

Where in the previous MJPS’s budgets was this made public as part of the public presentation the MJPS gives on behalf of their employer the Moose Jaw Board Of Police Commissioners?

You can look all you want. It is not there.

But all of a sudden we as citizens are told on Tuesday afternoon the MJPS has prudently been building up this capability over the past few years.

Strange, if it is so necessary to fighting the violent gun ridden city, that none of this was made public let’s say four or five years ago.

It wasn’t and likely never will be.

It is a question that needs to publicly asked of the MJPS but it won’t be. The time for Council to question the need and what has happened to require a major expenditure for a Tactical Team addition is now lost.

If you listened carefully to the MJPS’s presentation on Tuesday afternoon what you heard was not only a slick PR campaign stating the need for handing over to the police much more money - for the second year in a row - to ensure the MJPS has a handle on the growing amount of violent crime.

But if you listened even more carefully you could also hear the MJPS contradicting themselves.

A veteran officer told Council in the last six months criminals having guns has exploded in the city while a second veteran officer said they have always been there and that statement was backed up by Chief Rick Bourassa.

So which version is it?

If you have been following the goings on when it comes to the MJPS you will know that the force received funding to equip the Tactical Team from the Proceeds of Crime Fund. And you will also know in the 125 pages behind that application 117 are simply redacted.

The general public cannot see the reasons used to receive the $80,000 plus in funding. That is until Chief Bourassa and his crew told us all about it on Tuesday afternoon.

It leaves me asking why?

Why did the MJPS wait until everything was in the bag so to speak to finally release their reasons for the need to spend $100,000 from what I was told is their reserve fund to train the unit and then an additional $80,000 to equip.

I am not debating the need for the Tactical Team what I am pointing out is the secrecy in forming it especially when it comes to the illicit firearms on the street and the real threat they pose to ordinary everyday residents.

This is the same as the Meth Crisis that the city is now experiencing and how the MJPS even went so far as to tell the now defunct Moose Jaw Times-Herald back in 2017 there were no gangs behind the rise of Meth in the community but their own internal documents prove otherwise.

They also forgot to mention earlier they put out a warning to parents that gangs were recruiting in Moose Jaw but at the same time they didn’t exist.

Now we are hearing the Meth Crisis is real and there are gangs involved and thus the need now for a tactical team.

It leaves me thinking with Meth taking off and taking root in Moose Jaw back in 2015 why didn’t the MJPS warn parents about it? How can people help their kids if they don’t know anything about it?

Weren’t these the days when the MJPS was telling people crime, except for petty crime due to narcotics, was in check?

These are the types of questions the MJPS really don’t want to hear but in reality they are questions they need to answer if they want to rebuild the lost confidence they have in the community.

Then there was Councillor and Police Commissioner Doug Blanc asking about a $26 unpaid meal the police had on their records. It got me thinking was this about the in-transit prisoner courtesy the Coronach RCMP that never made it out of the MJPS cells?

There are other things that are troubling the MJPS and that is what is the status of the one, yet to be publicly named individual, who sources tell me committed suicide with a weapon he somehow managed to smuggle into the cells?

This not the first time something like this has happened with a member of the MJPS publicly re-telling how a person managed to smuggle in meth, a pipe and assorted other items into the cells in an earlier incident.

These are the things the MJPS is dealing with but really never answer.

And to answer those questions more effectively and efficiently the MJPS is also set to hire a communications officer as part of their 2023 Budget - for some it is if they almost think of everything and will likely receive the funding for it.

But what we heard on Tuesday afternoon was likely the truth about how bad crime - especially violent and hard drug crime - has become in Moose Jaw.

The problem with it though is that it is in reality part of a larger system of where the MJPS has used their PR skills to basically get what they want from the public purse without having to really justify the reason for it.

With last year’s increase it means in the last two years - by using 2021 as a base year - the MJPS are now up 12 percent in their budget.

It is something to really think about.

In Moose Jaw there is no Batman we can call to the rescue win an endless bag of cash there is just you and me and they seem to call us Cashman.

No Dorothy we don’t live in Kansas anymore we actually live in Gotham City with its underlying twists and behind the scene machinations with little, if any, questions asked.