By Kevin J. Sabo
For the Advance
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Coronation has a new top cop.
Corporal, soon to be Sergeant, Jason Smith has recently taken over as the detachment commander in Coronation. Coronation has been in a state of transition since the former Sergeant accepted a transfer to Edmonton in June of 2018.
Smith has been a member of the RCMP for the past dozen years, and Coronation is his first command.
“I’ve spent lots of time in ‘acting’ roles,” said Smith.
“In Mayerthorpe I was the ops commander. I was responsible for day to day operations.”
Being new to the community of Coronation, Smith has already laid out some priorities for policing, most notably getting fraud down, and reducing speeding in school zones.
“It’s a big problem for the elderly,” said Smith.
“I also want to focus on awareness because we have no jurisdiction where a lot of the call centres are.”
Enforcing the law in school zones in the communities in his jurisdiction is another priority.
“The people in the community abide very well to the traffic laws,” said Smith. “The school zones are important.”
Smith has said that he plans to be more visible in the school zones, however since Coronation does not actually have a traffic division he would be unable to get an unmarked vehicle into Castor or Coronation for traffic enforcement.
As part of his duties since taking over the role of commander in Coronation, Smith has also been managing day to day operations in Consort as well, as they are without a commander.
“It’s been busy,” said Smith with a smile.
Smith has had a high-profile career in his time with the RCMP.
In his 12 years with the service, he has participated in the investigation into the luge fatality which occurred on the same day as the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and he was on the ground during the fire and evacuation of Fort McMurray in 2016.
“I like the area so far,” said Smith when asked about his time in the local region. “It’s been a lot more friendly than my last couple of postings.”