It was a changing of the guard this year in the police department in the Kennebecasis Valley with the naming of a new chief.
Wayne Gallant, who has replaced the now-retired former chief Steve Palmer, is originally from Newfoundland and Labrador and joined the RCMP in 1990 spending about 27 years with the Mounties in four different provinces mostly in New Brunswick.
Gallant started this new gig in late November and tells CHSJ News that he’s in the process of assessing the workplace and the employees.
“I’ve made a commitment to everybody here to meet with everybody one-on-one before we go too far down any sort of change management agenda or anything like that, so that’s what I’m in the process of doing right now. The force is small enough that I think that commitment can be realized within a fairly short period of time,” says Gallant.
“People wanna talk so I’m hearing lots, lots of positives, some things where there’s opportunities as well, maybe for change, or for improvements…so I’m really going to seek to forge my agenda from those meetings.”
Gallant tells us his philosophy around policing is heavily focused on aligning with what the needs of the communities are along with evidence-based solutions.
“It’s a costly endeavour to provide policing service to communities so you really want to make sure that your strategies are producing good value for your communities in terms of ensuring safety, security and healthy communities.”
