INNISFAIL - After a three-year hiatus Mounties are once again on the trail looking for the good guys and gals.
The RCMP, in partnership with the Town of Innisfail, has resurrected the Positive Ticketing Program, thanks to Const. Craig Nelson, the local police detachment's school resource officer.
"Craig had brought up (Positive Ticketing Program) actually and he wanted to see this program get started again or getting started. I don't think he knew it was on in the past. We knew we had the files back at the office so I signed up to help him get it started," said Allyssa Bremner, community facilitator for the Town of Innisfail.
The program, which last appeared in town in 2015, was initiated to give police officers a unique opportunity to develop positive relationships with local youth. Both the town and the RCMP maintain that in addition to recognizing and reinforcing positive behaviour in the community, the greater value from the program lies in the communication and interaction it creates between police and youth.
"I see the benefit of promoting positive acts throughout the community with our youth and also starting positive relationships with a police officer," said Bremner. "If they (youth) see a police officer coming up to them they are not always getting in trouble, and that it is a positive relationship that can be started there as well."
But the real hero here for the program's resurrection is Nelson, but he was away on holidays last week when it officially started in the community.
However, the detachment's commanding officer, Staff Sgt. Chris Matechuk, was out on Main Street last week with Bremner to hand out a positive ticket, which the local police chief was more than happy to do.
"Like any organization we have annual performance plans or initiatives we like to create for the year for police officers to do. One of the areas was to engage the youth in the community. We tasked Const. Nelson to come up with something and it was his idea to resurrect the Positive Ticketing Program," said Matechuk.
"It is really supported by management and by me to engage the community and engage the youth in a positive way," he added. "Const. Nelson does it on a daily basis in the schools but we want to get the whole detachment on board doing it as well."
In the meantime Bremner engaged the business community to be part of the program, and many are making contributions. Positive tickets for kids will include coupons for buy-one-get-one-free ice cream cones from McDonald's, 7-Eleven coupons for free Slurpees and Big Gulps, free pizza and pop coupons from Innisfail Pizza and Canadian Pizza Unlimited. Innisfail Bowling Lanes, Subway, Discovery Wildlife Park and Innisfail Aquatic Centre are also adding their own free contributions to the program.
Bremner said 20 packages have already been brought down to RCMP members, which Matechuk says will be an important positive community engagement tool for each detachment police officer.
"A police officer's job is looking for people doing something bad or negative or wrong," said Matechuk. "This is a great way to motivate the police officers to look for people doing something right and build those relationships early because if you build them early it will continue on when the youth become teenagers and young adults."
