New KV Police Chief Gets Right To Work

The new Kennebecasis regional police chief says his first few months have been positive and rewarding.

Steve Gourdeau joined the police force in early October to replace retiring chief Wayne Gallant.

“I got right to work in picking up from where chief Gallant left off,” Gourdeau said in a year-end interview.

“The first couple of months have been like drinking water from a firehose as it relates to becoming familiar with how things work in the department.”

Gourdeau, who has spent more than three decades in policing, said every department has its own take on aspects such as records management systems, administrative software, and budgeting.

The new chief said his first goal was getting to know each of the members and learning what their expectations are.

“But at the same time, I wanted to share with them my expectations around professionalism and deportment, a respectful and safe workplace, dedication to our core values, quality of investigations, and being connected with the communities we serve,” said Gourdeau.

Gourdeau said he also spent time looking at ongoing projects to ensure they were being successful or what was needed to reach success.

The force is a full year into a new initiative which sees a review team made up of community advocates look at all sexual violence files which are not referred for charges.

“That identifies barriers and gaps in the investigations and it helps us provide a better outcome for victims,” said Gourdeau, noting they have a similar program focusing on intimate partner violence.

The chief said they also changed one of their strategic priorities around connecting with the communities in order to be more inclusive around diversity.

Gourdeau said they wanted to hear what some groups in the community had to say about what their policing priorities should be.

“We had a really good consultation meeting with a number of diverse groups and they helped us set up a number of priorities from a policing perspective but from where they sit,” he said.

One of the initiatives Gourdeau said he is most pleased with is an internal health and wellness program for employees, which has seen an increase in participation.

“This is a clear indication to me that we are fostering a healthier work environment and we’re going to continue to build on that,” he said.

Gourdeau said they also have a lot of great ideas in the works for the upcoming year. He said the force’s recently-approved budget includes money to hire more resources.

“Including a civilian IT specialist who’s going to help us with investigations where there’s a lot of IT components,” said Gourdeau.

“As well, we’re going to hire more patrol officers with a focus on traffic enforcement. That’s our number one complaint in the valley.”

Gordeau said the force also has an ongoing project with Dr. Mary Ann Campbell at UNB Saint John to train all officers on evidence-based interviewing and information gathering.

He said the KV does not have a high crime rate, but they need to continually assess and refine their major crime investigative abilities to be prepared.

“We’re not immune from time to time to facing more serious criminal cases, so we need to constantly assess and refine our abilities in that respect,” said Gourdeau.