Lower Mainland Police Act

The Lower Mainland Police Act, 1886 is an act of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia passed on 10 April 1886, which mandated for the existence of a local policing service and county constabulary in the county known as the Lower Mainland, which in 1966 became a ceremonial county consisting of seven distinct administrative counties (counties proper each with their own unique upper-level local government). Despite the 1966 county reorganisation, to this day the Lower Mainland Constabulary (LMC; the police service constituted by the Act established in 1886) remains the county constabulary for all seven administrative counties and their respective incorporated municipalities and unincorporated communities; the LMC is answerable equally to all administrative county and municipal governments via the Lower Mainland Police & Crime Commissionner (PCC), who is elected by and answerable to the Lower Mainland Police Board, the official civilian oversight committee and employer of the LMC.

Prior to the implementation of the Lower Mainland Police Act, the Lower Mainland was primarily a rural/forested jurisdiction dotted with small to medium port cities, the two most prominent of which were New Westminster and Vancouver. While the former two municipalities as well as seven smaller municipalities in the Lower Mainland each maintained their own local civilian police service, and the British Columbia Sheriff Service (BCSS) policed most rural (non-urban) areas of the Lower Mainland, the Act officially merged the seven local forces into a single force called the Lower Mainland Constabulary, which also absorbed all the rural and other responsibilities of the Sheriff Service within the Lower Mainland on completion of the LMC's establishment.

Over the 20th century, as the Lower Mainland rapidly grew from a primarily agriculture- and shipping-based economy filled with multiple farms and forests interspersed with small urban areas to a full-scale metropolis, so too did the Lower Mainland Constabulary evolve into the modern urban police service it is today.