The provincial government is looking for ways to hire and train additional sheriffs in order to eliminate staff shortages that led to the dismissal of charges against two alleged drug dealers in Victoria this year.
Attorney General David Eby said in an interview Tuesday that the former B.C. Liberal government’s decision to double the number of sheriff-training classes this year fell short of what is needed.
“We’re looking at ways to add additional classes of sheriffs to make sure that we have sufficient sheriffs to ensure our courts run properly,” he said.
One of the problems is finding a place to do that, given the limited space at the Justice Institute of B.C. to accommodate more classes, Eby said.
“I’ll have more about this in the weeks and months ahead, but the challenge of just the sheer physical space is one that is a surprisingly difficult one.
“We will grapple with it and we’ll figure it out, because we need a court system, and British Columbians deserve a court system, that is able to hear their disputes in a timely manner.”
The issue made headlines in February when judges tossed out two cases involving alleged drug dealers in a week because of a shortage of sheriffs at the Victoria courthouse.
Former attorney general Suzanne Anton said at the time that a $2.67-million budget increase would allow her ministry to add a second class at the Justice Institute and train 56 new sheriffs this year. She said there were 481 sheriffs in B.C. in 2016-17, down from 519 in 2012-13.
“The Liberal government had anticipated hiring and training more sheriffs,” Opposition critic Andrew Wilkinson, a former Liberal attorney general, said in an interview Tuesday.
“The issue becomes that it takes a while to train those sheriffs, so we’ll be looking at the NDP proposal to see if it’s actually workable.”
Wilkinson said training spaces are limited. “So we have to be careful not to massively expand a training program for a once-only surge in demand.”
The NDP platform promised to increase spending on sheriffs and legal aid by $10 million this year and $15 million in 2018-19.
Dean Purdy, vice-president of the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union, blamed the staff shortage on “minuscule” wage increases for sheriffs and correctional officers under the former government. The result is a widening pay gap between sheriffs and police officers that lures some sheriffs to municipal police departments or the RCMP, he said.
“They can hire all the new young sheriffs and correctional officers they want, but they won’t stay; they’ll move on.”
Purdy, who is the chairman of corrections and sheriffs services with the union, said a sheriff’s salary tops out at $58,000 for a deputy sheriff compared with $85,000 to $100,000 for a police officer.
“That’s the single biggest reason that we have a shortage of sheriffs at this point in the province,” he said.
“It’s because of the low wages. And it sounds typical coming from a union person, but it’s just the way it is.”
Eby acknowledged the challenge with retaining sheriffs and said his ministry is working on that issue, as well.
He said making sure courthouses are properly staffed and that people receive timely trials is a “huge priority” for him.
“It’s a very big issue, and the way it’s showing up right now is a shortage of sheriffs, but once we deal with the sheriffs issue there will be other issues, for example, related to the number of clerks,” he said.
“We’re trying to get a big-picture view of how to ensure that we’re moving these cases through quickly.
“It’s a real concern. Our courts have been understaffed for many years now and it is a priority for our government to make sure that we do what’s necessary to minimize the impact of long delays in some of these matters.”
