RCMP OFFICIAL TO DISCUSS DRUG SECTION WITH COUNTY AT PUBLIC MEETING

TRURO -- Colchester County council will have an opportunity to speak with a
top RCMP official later this month regarding the future of the Northeast
Nova Drug section.

Chief superintendent Tom Bennett has agreed to come to Truro after
Colchester Mayor Mike Smith requested a meeting earlier this winter after
reports surfaced the section may be dismantled.

"Our municipality alone gives over $2.5 million to the RCMP," Smith said
Tuesday. "Our council, Truro council and Stewiacke council deserve to hear
first-hand what's going on."

The meeting will be held Feb. 24 at 6 p.m. at the Municipality of
Colchester council chambers. "It will be a public forum and I hope to get
answers that I, and other politicians, have regarding the RCMP," Smith said.

Reports of the possible redeployment of the drug officers from the Prince
Street office, which serves a large geographic area from Amherst to the
Canso Causeway and south to Enfield, began last summer and were raised
again in January by Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley MLA Brooke Taylor.

Colchester's three MLAs and Member of Parliament have been invited to
attend the meeting.