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NUNAVUT
Nunavut will have a new top cop as the current commanding officer is retiring.

RCMP Chief Supt. Steve McVarnock, left, announced he is retiring from the Mounties after 32 years of service. Supt. Lindsey Brine will replace him as the commanding officer of V Division as of Jan. 10. - Jeanne Gagnon/NNSL photo

RCMP Chief Supt. Steve McVarnock will retire in January after serving 32 years with the force, 13 of which were spent in the Arctic. Soon heading into retirement, he said he would start working at living and spend more time with his family.

But he added he has no serious plans in terms of becoming the president or chief operating officer of a major company.

"I just want to reconnect with the family down south," said McVarnock. "I have some personal bucket list goals I want to accomplish. One of those is to take my pedal bicycle and pedal across this great country."

And now, he said, he won't have any excuses not do it.

Chief Supt. Lindsey Brine, the acting commanding officer for RCMP national headquarters in Ottawa, will replace him starting Jan. 10. He was chosen following a nationwide process.

Brine is no stranger to the North; he spent four years in Iqaluit, from 1996 to 2000.

"Our desire has always been to come back to the Arctic, especially to the eastern Arctic. We have a love for the Inuit culture and our four years in Iqaluit were absolutely amazing," he said, adding he knows some of the challenges the territory is facing. "I really want to continue to embrace the local culture and really work on some initiatives relating to things such as recruiting and communication and building ourselves into the community so we're seen as part of the community."

He added he visited 18 of the 25 communities during his previous tenure in the North and intends to visit them all in the coming months to get a sense of what's going on.

Brine will become the sixth commanding officer of V Division. The tenure of McVarnock's predecessors has ranged between two to three years. McVarnock has been the commanding officer of V Division for slightly more than three-and-a-half years.

"I am very candid. I believe everybody, no matter what position or what rank you are, everybody has a shelf life in a certain function, in a certain location," he said. "It's going to be very difficult to leave but I think it's the right time. To start here as a recruit (in 1981) and to leave as the commanding officer, to me, is just the ultimate way to end it all."

Brine has been posted in all three territories, as well as three provinces, since joining the force in 1987. He worked in uniform policing, aboriginal policing, highway patrol, major crimes, criminal operations, human resources and national security. He is married and has two university-aged children.

Brine said the city has changed since he left more than a decade ago but the sense of community is still there. He said his focus will be to recruit more Inuit members and employees as well as deal with issues such as mental health, crime prevention and communication with communities.

"My goal is to become more part of the community," said Brine, police being personally involved in their communities leads to those communities being safer.

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