Staff Sergeant Jen McNeil’s RCMP career took her to faraway places closer to home and she’s okay with that

Island District

2024-12-11 11:28 PST

Staff Sergeant Jennifer McNeil in Nunavut last August

The one thing that attracted Staff Sergeant Jennifer McNeil to join the RCMP as a young recruit in 1998, was the possibility of seeing the world.

She grew up in Fort St. John, a small northern city in British Columbia with sub-artic temperatures and a hub for the resource and energy industries. The young 20-year-old looked forward to an exciting new career with the prospect of going beyond the confines of northern British Columbia.

I thought I’d join the RCMP and see the world and my first posting was in Chetwynd, BC, says S/Sgt. McNeil laughing at the thought of it. Chetwynd is about an hour-and-a- half away from her hometown and S/Sgt. McNeil wouldn’t leave the province in her RCMP capacity until she was posted to Cape Breton in 2016 for three years. But in the end, she was okay with that.

The experience in Chetwynd introduced her to reserve life and policing within Indigenous communities. S/Sgt. McNeil is Indigenous but had not grown up on a reserve. When I worked on the reserves, there was a lot of thinking on your feet. I would have to approach an issue differently and it would be light years from what a six-foot-male police officer would be, but the end result was the same, she says. An admitted life-long learner, she loved working in Chetwynd and worked closely with the chief and then a hereditary female chief on several band bylaws.

Today, S/Sgt. McNeil leads the RCMP’s Forensic Identification Services for the Island District and she’s very happy to be there.

She was urged on in her career by a now retired Staff Sergeant Bill Van Otterloo, a detachment commander at Oceanside RCMP who turned out to be an important mentor for her. He was such a progressive person. When I first got there, he gave a big speech. He said ‘most people only give 40 or 50 per cent at work. If you give at least 70 percent, I will help you get anywhere you want to go.’ He was such a great guy. He helped me to figure out how to get into ident, S/Sgt. McNeil recalls.

A self-proclaimed worker bee, she believes S/Sgt. Van Otterloo, recognized that she got bored easily. It was another one of the reasons I joined the RCMP, she says. After finishing her schooling as a dietician, she arrived at Oceanside and trained three recruits back-to-back.

She was also grateful to have Superintendent Nav Hothi as a mentor. Supt. Hothi leads the BC RCMP Forensic Identification Services. She’s my boss and she’s an inspiration.

Still adventurous, S/Sgt. McNeil took the opportunity to work in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut as temporary relief last August. That was amazing, she recalls.

I had a tonne of files and I did everything I could possibly do in a month, says S/Sgt. McNeil. In addition to a tonne of files, she also fully embraced the experience of working in the north. I got to try raw beluga—the texture was strange and cooked seal—it was just such an amazing cultural experience.

S/Sgt. McNeil recommends a remote relief posting to anyone who might have a chance to experience something out of the normal scope of duties.

She has spent the majority of her career on the island where she, her husband and son have lived since 2005 with the exception of the three-year posting on the east coast.

As she edges ever closer to retirement she has a special focus on encouraging more Indigenous and minority women in policing. There is a place in policing for you, she encourages. She was part of the Women’s Indigenous Network (WIN) who helped to create the ribbon skirt. I am much more passionate about it.

Released by:

BC RCMP Communication Services
778-290-2929

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