Lower Mainland Police Area

The Lower Mainland Police Area (French: Zone de police des Basses-terres) is the geographic area for which the Lower Mainland Constabulary (Constabulaire des Basses-terres) is primarily responsible. It is one of 16 police areas in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC), each police area generally coterminous with a ceremonial county, of which BC has 16. Home to over 6.5 million people, the Lower Mainland Police Area area is the most populous police area in BC and the third-most populous in Canada. The Lower Mainland Police Area is geographically coterminous with the ceremonial county of the Lower Mainland, which since 1966 has been divided into the six administrative counties of North Fraser, South Fraser, Fraser Valley, Golden Ears, Coquitlam and Capilano, each of which have their own county government (as well as multiple local governments for each counties' multiple incorporated municipalities), but which each contract with the Lower Mainland Constabulary to provide policing services in and across all six administrative counties at the county and municipal level, as well as for all six counties' unincorporated communities.

The Lower Mainland Constabulary is answerable to the Lower Mainland Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), who is elected by and manages the executive affairs of the Lower Mainland Police Board, the official employer of the LMC and its civilian oversight committee. The Lower Mainland Police Board was formerly answerable to the Lower Mainland County Council, but is today composed of the heads of government of all six counties and of all constituent municipalities. The PCC, who functions as the civilian supervisor of the Chief Constable of the Lower Mainland Constabulary, and is himself directly accountable to the Attorney General of British Columbia.

Law enforcement at the provincial level (across BC, including the Lower Mainland) is handled by the British Columbia Sheriff Service (BCSS). Similarly, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Canadian federal government's premier law enforcement agency, is responsible for policing at the federal level throughout BC (including the Lower Mainland) and all other provinces and territories constituting the rest of Canada. The LMC also maintains public security at the Lower Mainland's three international airports and three land border crossings into the United States, in conjunction with the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

The BCSS assists the Lower Mainland Constabulary with local counterterrorism operations, investigations and operations against local extremist groups and other real and potential violent threats, large-scale riot control, and criminal intelligence, alongside its main responsibilities of transportation of prisoners between provincial corrections facilities and other locations (like other courthouses, police jails and other prisons and institutions), providing security and bailiff services to all provincial courthouses, providing security to provincial government buildings and large provincial Crown corporations, and its clandestine specialties like effective reconnaissance, surveillance and deep cover capabilities, unparalleled plainclothes personal protection details/bodyguard services for high-level provincial judicial and provincial governmental officials and other persons in the judicial system deemed at risk, and its role in the administration of the Canadian National Witness Protection Program (the operations of which it administers in BC under the oversight of the BCSS). The LMC's anti-corruption unit IA5 also operates a witness protection program of its own, which liaises closely with its national counterpart.

Police Board
Each mayor of the six administrative counties' constituent municipal governments and each council chairperson/executive manager of each of the six county governments (known as county councils) together sit on the Lower Mainland Police Board, which acts as the employer of the Lower Mainland Constabulary. The members of the Police Board elect an outside, politically neutral individual to serve as the Lower Mainland Police and Crime Commissioner, colloquially known as the PCC; the Chief Constable of the Lower Mainland Constabulary is answerable to the Police Board via the PCC, who is the executive leader of the Police Board and represents it between board meetings. However, policymaking and major decisions are ultimately the responsibility of the Police Board, which can dismiss the PCC via a vote of no confidence and then elect a new one.