SUNDRE — The local RCMP detachment’s new commander brings to the community more than two decades of extensive police experience spanning over multiple specializations.
Previously posted in Hanna where he had also served as the detachment’s commander, Sgt. Trent Sperlie said during an interview at his new Sundre office that this January will mark his 24-year milestone as a Mountie.
“I was posted in Saskatchewan for 16-ish years. I did general duty policing there, I did remote fly-in postings in Saskatchewan, I was a dog handler for a few years, I worked with the drug unit with Saskatoon police service for five years,” he said when asked about his prior background.
“I definitely have been pretty lucky, and I’ve had a diversified experience,” he told The Albertan.
Officially starting his new duties in Sundre on Oct. 4, the sergeant said the community has so far been great.
Before enlisting more than two decades ago, Sperlie said he worked on a dairy operation for about 10 years in Saskatchewan.
But an innate calling to serve eventually grew too loud for him to ignore.
“Policing — and fire, actually — had been something of interest to me for quite a while,” he explained.
“I started applying both for fire and for police. And this came up, and I never looked back,” he said, adding his career might well have gone the other way had an opportunity in fire services presented itself first.
The camaraderie among his colleagues and the relationships he’s built with people in the communities he’s served are primarily what motivates him to enthusiastically come to work.
“The interaction with the members — just the joking back and forth — and getting to know people in all these different communities, that is 100 per cent what keeps me going,” he said.
Sperlie also said he’s inspired by the work fellow officers do for the communities they serve and their accomplishments along the way.
RCMP modernizing
Speaking candidly, the sergeant said policing has changed substantially since he first graduated from Depot and began his first beats.
“The RCMP is evolving, and we’re slowly seeing changes coming to the RCMP,” he said.
“And it’s nice seeing that, too,” he added.
Asked to elaborate more specifically, Sperlie cited as one example Truth and Reconciliation.
“That was a big eye opener for everybody,” he said. “Everybody had to kind of sit back and take a pause and take a breath and kind of reflect.”
As Canada’s collective conscience continues to process the darker parts of the country’s history pertaining to how First Nations, Métis and Inuit people were for centuries treated by the government, he recognizes that the RCMP played “a role in what happened back then, and fairly recent. It’s not something that we want to say we’re proud of.”
Dismissing or downplaying that portion of our past as ancient history that people just simply need to get over when there are still survivors of the residential school system alive, is a disservice to finding meaningful solutions on the path to healing, and the sergeant “100 per cent” agreed that acknowledging and understanding the intergenerational trauma and cycle of poverty that Indigenous people have and continue to endure to this day is important.
“I’ve worked in those communities. So, I’ve seen the socio-economic differences between those communities and other communities, and there is reconciliation and there is work to be done,” he said.
“It’s not fair that somebody else is still struggling from the trauma from not that long ago, today. We need to recognize that.”
That soul searching has prompted the understanding that the national police service must modernize, which “is probably one of the biggest things that the RCMP is doing right now,” he said.
“It goes all the way back to even when women weren’t allowed in the force.”
Addressing issues such as wage inequities along the path to ongoing modernization has been “really interesting to watch,” he said.
Change a challenge
Responding to what he considers to be among the job’s biggest hurdles, the sergeant said, “Change is always challenging.”
When he donned his first uniform, Sperlie said many important issues that are getting the attention they deserve today, weren’t even on the radar back then.
“We’re recognizing things today that we didn’t recognize when I first got in. I’ve seen things back then that I see now, and we respond to them differently,” he said.
“You look at mental health for one. Back then when I first got in, mental health wasn’t a thing. Nobody recognized it, nobody knew what it was.”
But over the years, light was increasingly shed on issues such as post traumatic stress disorder. Although there’s no immediately obvious silver bullet solution, the sergeant said efforts to address mental health have included bringing greater awareness to the issue in the service with a focus on prevention.
“Members way back in the day suffered mental trauma that nobody knew how to treat because they didn’t recognize it. It’s not just in policing. It’s every emergency service — your fire, your EMS. They’re all exposed to things that people aren’t supposed to see and deal with,” he said.
“Everybody has some degree of PTSD in emergency services — military especially, serving overseas.”
The first step to improving a problem, is to identify and recognize it. But developing strategies to mitigate such issues is the big challenge, he said.
Looking ahead
Moving forward, the sergeant said he’s still working on getting a handle on his new post, a process that’s been facilitated by assistance from former acting-commander Cpl. Resus Organ.
“The corporal here is getting me up to speed on helping me get a pulse on the community,” said Sperlie, adding he also plans to get out into the community and meet people to begin to better understand the community’s needs and concerns.
“We’ll base our priorities on that,” he said.
Although he hasn’t gone hunting for a long time, Sperlie expressed a fondness for fishing as well as spending time outdoors, and said he looks forward to further exploring the bountiful recreational opportunities offered by the vast West Country.
“I’m really looking forward to this area," he said.
In fact, provided the stars align and plans fall into place, the sergeant hopes to eventually permanently settle in the area on a small acreage after retiring.
“Me and my fiancée are extremely happy to be here,” he said.
Although the couple doesn’t have any children, they do have a couple of fur babies — a cat and a dog.
“We’re definitely looking forward to the community. This is likely going to be where we finish off,” he said.
