Kamloops Mayor Ken Christian is ready for a busy week next week as he spends five days in Vancouver at the UBCM convention.

He says the city’s delegation will be meeting with the RCMP to talk about a few issues including the cost of keeping prisoners in relation to a 2002 agreement which does not reflect today’s cost structure. “Where you have people with special dietary needs, medical needs, medication needs, all those kind of things. We get between $6 and $10 an hour for a prisoner and prisoners cost us over $20 an hour to keep. So think of that when everyone says we should be arresting everybody… Chance to speak to the commissioner for British Columbia. Couple of things we are talking about directly is the keeping of prisoners issue. This was an agreement that was done in 2002 and it really does not reflect the cost of keeping prisoners.”

Christian says they’ll also be lobbying for help for rural detachments. “Want to lobby for oddly enough more resources for rural detachments and in particular the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc detachment. That covers both the KIB, but also the Sun Rivers Development, Tobiano and Sun Peaks. So, they are under resourced.”

Christian says they also have meetings set up with the Ministers of Finance, Education, the Solicitor General and more. The UBCM Convention runs from September 23-27 in Vancouver.