NS Municipal* and Specialized Police Forces
(*outside HRM)

Last updatedApril 19, 2010

INPUT FREQUENCIES AND/OR TMR LIAISON TALKGROUPS NEEDED FOR ANNAPOLIS ROYAL, KENTVILLE, SPRINGHILL.  MY APOLOGIES TO THOSE WHO HAVE SENT IN ANY OF THIS INFO PREVIOUSLY AND I HAVE MISLAID IT.  PLEASE SEND AGAIN, THANKS!!

© 2007, MARITIMES SCANNING SITE, all rights reserved

   Nova Scotia is served by two levels of police forces.  First there is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which serves as the federal police, the provincial police, and in some communities, as the town police.   There are a small number of municipal (town or city) police forces throughout the province.  Policing in Nova Scotia's largest municipality, the Halifax Regional Municipality, is covered in its own page.

Municipal Police Services in Nova Scotia Outside the Halifax Regional Municipality

There are a dwindling number of town and regional police departments remaining in Nova Scotia.  The decrease is due to amalgamations and to a trend to hiring the RCMP to take over municipal duties.   In many cases, but not all, the members of the former town forces are offered employment in the RCMP, so that the personnel do not completely change, however the communications frequencies and systems do change over to regular RCMP standards.  

Nova Scotia has an obsolescent VHF repeater network that served all government departments, and which has since 2000 been progressively replaced by a newer 800 MHz trunk system, which is now used by the Halifax Police and by the RCMP.   One component of the old VHF system was a common police frequency (153.59 MHz) that was available at several of the repeater sites and is still known to be active in the New Glasgow area and possibly in other areas.   This repeater system not only allowed separate departments in any one area to intercommunicate, but also allowed communications around the province.

The major remaining municipal force outside Halifax is the Cape Breton Regional Police Service.  This is an amalgamation of a number of individual town and city forces dating from 1995.  It took in all the former town police departments such as Sydney, North Sydney, Sydney Mines, New Waterford and Glace Bay .    In 2000, the Cape Breton Regional Municipality completed controversial contract discussions which led to the takeover by the Regional Police of responsibility in the rural areas outside of the former town and city areas.   This takeover resulted in the closing of a number of RCMP detachments. The CBRPS website is http://highlander.cbnet.ns.ca/~cbrm/police.htm.  

Other Police and Official Security Services in Nova Scotia

MILITARY POLICE

The Canadian Armed Forces has its own security and police operation.  Part of this operates in conjunction with military operations and presumably would be found on military frequencies as needed.  I do not have information on this aspect at all but would welcome any information.  The other aspect is base security and policing.  In this respect the MP's are much like civilian police officers and drive conventional looking police cruisers.   In Nova Scotia there are base MP units in Halifax and in Greenwood.  

The Halifax area military police utilize (as of November 2004) the NS Trunked Mobile Radio System for most operations; however their patrol boats (including the Vigilance) may also be heard on the marine VHF channels.  In addition to the actual MP's there is also a civilian security service patrolling the base and they operate also on the trunk on a different talkgroup.  These services are thought to operate exclusively in the digital mode and therefore will not be heard on a non-digital scanner.  It is likely that the Military Police go beyond this and use encryption.  For convenience these services in Halifax are included in a separate page (under construction in November 2004) on the Department of National Defence.

The military police at CFB Greenwood reportedly operate on 155.13 MHz, which at one time may have been a national military police frequency.  They also are thought to operate to some extent on the trunk. See also the federal government page.

HALIFAX BRIDGE POLICE

There are two large toll suspension bridges spanning Halifax harbour.  Toll booths and patrols are manned by the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires.  (This is  a private security organization, but all members are veterans of the armed forces or of a police service, and it has a semi-official status.)  Their vehicles are marked "Police" and they can give tickets for infractions on bridge commission property. 

CN POLICE
Another semi-official police service is the CN Police.  This is the security service of CN Rail (Canadian National Railways).  They do have uniformed police officers with jurisdiction on CN property, who drive regular-looking police cars and have powers of arrest on railway property.

These are railroad band frequencies.  This force is spread very thinly.  I spoke in 1999 to a CN Police officer who said he was the only member in Nova Scotia!  I recall seeing, a few years ago, a CN Police cruiser with lights and siren rushing through the streets of Halifax, and wondering where it needed to be going so fast!?

HALIFAX AIRPORT SECURITY

Halifax International Airport is patrolled by its own uniformed security service, which is provided under contract by a private company.   The security service may have access to aeronautical frequencies as well as those of the RCMP (this is pure speculation), but it normally operates on 158.175 MHz for day to day operations.