B.C. has added a significant number of new spaces to the provincial training academy for municipal, transit and tribal police recruits.
"The needs of police services have grown in recent years," Public Safety Minister Nina Krieger said. "And this is due to retirement, to targeted recruitment efforts and also to the addition of a new municipal police service in Surrey."
The Justice Institute of B.C. will receive a funding boost of $4 million to hire new instructors, purchase new equipment, and create additional space for 92 added seats at the academy in New Westminster.
This will increase annual capacity to 288 officers from 192. Training is broken into three blocks over the course of 25 weeks, with both classroom and field instruction provided. This expansion, which took effect in September, allows each of the three groups to increase to 96 trainees from 64.
Local police departments hire the officers, who are then sent to the justice institute for training.
Krieger said this will go a "significant way" to addressing the needs of communities for more frontline officers.
"We are committed to working on an ongoing basis with police leaders and municipalities to continue to assess vacancies, which we do really on an ongoing basis, to ensure that we have the resources that they need to keep our communities safe," Krieger said.
The Justice Institute of B.C. also offers advanced training to existing municipal officers, the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies operating in the province.
