VICTORIA -- When a woman was violently attacked in her Oak Bay home in 2017 by a machete-wielding intruder, Oak Bay police were joined by investigators from Saanich.

Specialized officers from the larger municipality were called in to help investigate the complicated crime.

“We do have an agreement specifically with Saanich,” said Kevin Murdoch, the Mayor of Oak Bay. “They are for things like forensics or other sorts of specialized services that are hard to maintain in a small entity.”

It’s a partnership that has been working for decades and costs Oak Bay around $400,000 a year to maintain.

However, another police partnership in Greater Victoria isn't going over as smoothly.

“This marriage between Esquimalt and Victoria is not working,” said Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins on Tuesday.

Esquimalt and Victoria are in a forced marriage, mandated by the province in 2003. Both the mayor of Esquimalt and the chief of Victoria’s police department are now calling for a regional police force.

“I think it makes sense,” said VicPD Chief Del Manak on Tuesday. “I think it is cost effective.”

The province says it will entertain the idea but needs all the municipalities to buy-in.

“It’s not the time,” said Fred Haynes, the Mayor of Saanich. “It would be inappropriate and disrespectful to the residents of Saanich to even begin that, before we do our citizens assembly process.”

That process will explore if residents of Saanich and Victoria want to amalgamate municipalities.

“It seems to me, any talk of a regional police force or merging our police force is ahead of the game,” said Haynes.

Oak Bay isn’t exploring amalgamating with any other municipality and the mayor says creating a regional police force to cover different municipalities doesn’t work.

“Clearly that’s illustrated in what’s happening in Esquimalt and Victoria,” said Murdoch.

Murdoch says that integrated police forces are more effective, such as the Emergency Response Team and the Integrated Major Crime Unit, which all 13 Greater Victoria municipalities have access to.

“That model actually works really well,” said Murdoch. “We have incredibly high levels of satisfaction (from the community), we can be very responsive to community needs.”

It’s the tale of two policing partnerships. Saanich and Oak Bay want to stay married, while still keeping their independence. Esquimalt and Victoria want out of their agreement and think maybe it’s time to explore new relationships.