KeepAlbertaRCMP Tour hits the Hat today

By COLLIN GALLANT on January 20, 2022.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

The union representing RCMP officers will hold a meeting in Medicine Hat Thursday to discuss a potential move to create a provincial police force in Alberta.

The National Police Federation (NPF) says its KeepAlbertaRCMP Community Engagement Tour events this morning at the Medicine Hat Royal Canadian Legion and this afternoon in Brooks will provide information about the idea being pushed for by the provincial government and listen to concerns and garner feedback in the communities it serves.

Those areas don’t include Medicine Hat, which has its own municipal police force, but include Redcliff, Cypress County, Brooks, the County of Forty Mile and Bow Island.

Local political leaders have said they have concerns about a drive to switch services – a proposal discussed in a series of 70 planned meetings in early 2022 between stakeholders and officials from Alberta Justice.

There is no immediate indication as to how that will proceed after Justice Minister Kaycee Madu was removed from cabinet this week and his duties taken over on an interim basis by Energy Minister Sonya Savage.

The topic of a provincial police force came up at Cypress County council on Tuesday with Reeve Dan Hamilton stating “the biggest question mark is still cost.”

The NPF is advocating for Alberta to retain RCMP as the enforcement body in the province. It states that its polling shows 80 per cent of municipalities the RCMP serves in Alberta are satisfied with the arrangement. Figures have been disputed by the government.

“It’s critically important that Albertans have a full understanding of the significant costs and community safety implications of this proposal,” stated Kevin Halwa, a prairies regional director with the NPF.

The Canadian Press reported in November that the existing contract with the RCMP costs about $500 million per year, of which Ottawa provides $175 million in cost sharing. A standalone Alberta force could cost $735 million annually, according to a government-commissioned report, not including initial costs to buy vehicles and facilities of about $360 million.

That report, done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, also says some cost savings could be found by linking some operations of rural and urban police detachments and using in-place provincial government resources.

Premier Jason Kenney told rural municipal leaders at fall meetings that he should keep an open mind toward the proposal.

“We won’t make any changes without careful consultation with municipalities because it affects you so much, and more broadly with Albertans,” Kenney said at the Rural Municipalities of Alberta fall convention.

“And if we propose any model, any incremental costs would be adopted exclusively by the province and not by municipalities.”

Today’s meeting will take place between 10 a.m. and noon at No. 17 Robertson Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. An afternoon session in Brooks begins at 2 p.m. at the Legion in that city. All venues on the 36-stop tour across Alberta employ the “restriction exemption program” requiring proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test. Three online sessions are available for registration, the next being on Jan. 26 and 27.

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