RCMP officer living dream serving in
home community of East Hants
RAWDON/MOUNT UNIACKE: For Cpl. Evan Collier, the appeal to being a police officer—and now stationed in his home community-is simple.
“Every day is different,” said Cpl. Collier, a father of four, said about serving the community with East Hants RCMP in a recent interview with The Laker News.
“You go to work every day and it’s different,” he said. “Nothing is ever the same, and that just keeps it fresh.”
He has wanted to be an RCMP officer since a family member did a Grade 6 heritage fair project on the police force.
Cpl. Collier landed in East Hants in July 2022 and has been loving it. He looks after the Rawdon and Mount Uniacke detachments with East Hants RCMP.
The main task of his job as the one that looks after both is that they have everything they need and look after the members assigned to both.
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Being from the Rawdon area—and with plenty of family throughout the Hants North region—makes policing the area fun.
“It’s kind of like being home,” he said, adding his grandmother is a McLearn from South Rawdon, where he spent many summers at the lake.
“It’s nice to be working in a place your familiar with and already connected too. It helps with being responsible for that area and makes you give it your all.”
Cpl. Collier, who just transferred in from Nunavut, joined the RCMP in 2007, making this his 15th year of wearing the RCMP uniform.
He was initially posted in Leduc, Alta., where he spent seven years; transferred into the RCMP musical ride where he did one summer of training and two summers of touring, getting to ride for the Queen’s birthday in 2016; Ottawa in federal RCMP sections. In 2019, he transferred to New Minas; then accepted a promotion to run the Baker Lake, Nunavut detachment in 2021.
Fourteen months later the position there was transitioned to a Sgt. spot so he had to be transferred out, and he was offered Rawdon.
“I jumped on it,” he said.
At the Alberta posting, a fellow Rawdon native, Walter Page, was there at the same time. He had spent lots of time with Page in 4-H growing up. He’s still out west.
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When he’s on shift, he usually starts his day in Rawdon with a stop at the Country Store where he chats with the people there and give them a hard time.
Cpl. Collier counts his blessings at being fortunate enough to get a posting in his home province and county. He notes there are many N.S. RCMP officers that don’t get this opportunity.
“It’s really neat to be home,” said Cpl. Collier. “I never thought in a thousand years I’d be posted here.”
But it also has its challenges.
“There are situations where people know you or know your family, but you still have to remain impartial and do the job,” he said. “It hasn’t been too bad. I find a lot of people react better because they treat you differently knowing your from Hants County. They give you more time.”
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Cpl. Collier hopes to stay in N.S., but with the RCMP nothing is guaranteed as he could be asked to transfer elsewhere. He said he has at least a minimum of another 10 years before he could retire but added he probably won’t and will keep going as long as he can. He would be happy to move up one more rank, but if not that’s okay as well.
He spoke about the strain put on the frontline officers with the anti-police rhetoric that has built up over the past few years. That rhetoric has affected everything, including recruitment.
“It can be challenging at times, but you still take pride in what you do,” he said. “There are different people who spin things one way or another, but you just work with it.
“It forces us to change and be more open to new ideas. People get stuck with tradition in the past. I think it’s time to move forward with modern policing and be more open.”
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Cpl. Collier said part of his job as a frontline officer is to show them that policing isn’t all that bad.
“You can still be a nice person. You can still be a cop and show people what you see in the news isn’t always right,” he said. “I just want to make sure people have a better interaction with police.
“All of our interactions isn’t always positive because of what we deal with.”
He said it’s been hard seeing officers dying in the Line of Duty.
“It’s a constant reminder not to be complacent. It’s a constant reminder that this is a dangerous job,” said Cpl. Collier. “Historically, I think N.S. has been on the safer side of policing, but you can see that is changing now.
“People are changing, the world is changing so that affects our job.”
What’s the best part of being an RCMP officer?
“After dealing with something serious, and you get the reaction from people that truly, really needed help and you could help them and they come back and say what we did for them was helpful,” he responded.
“I have got lots of letters from parents and kids saying what I did was helpful. That’s the best reward ever.”
