Premier includes pledge in public safety minister’s mandate letter, but doesn’t mention it in speech to rural councillors
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is proceeding with plans to create a provincial police force, despite not mentioning the initiative during her speech Nov. 10 at the fall convention of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta.
Her goals were outlined in a mandate letter Nov. 9 by Smith to Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services Mike Ellis. It established his commitments as part of Smith’s new 27-member cabinet, which was sworn in Oct.24.
Smith expects him to work on launching an Alberta Police Service in conjunction with Justice Minister Tyler Shandro as the project’s lead, along with Municipal Affairs. The initiative was first proposed under former Premier Jason Kenney, who was replaced by Smith after she won the leadership race for the governing United Conservative Party (UCP) on Oct. 6.
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During her speech at the convention, Smith emphasized her rural roots.
“First of all, I want you to know that I am one of you,” she said as a resident and restaurant owner in High River, Alta., near Calgary.
She wanted to “reset the relationship between the government and municipal government, with your municipal leaders, because in point of fact, we’re all serving the same people. We’re all working together to make sure rural Alberta is stronger, healthier, and more prosperous for everyone.”
She addressed the controversy over a resolution passed by the UCP at its recent annual general meeting. It seeks to require municipal officials to register as lobbyists when dealing with the provincial government.
She understood the resolution “was born out of a sense of frustration that our members had about how fractious the relationship had become with some councils over the last few years. But it may not be the best way to address that issue.”
Smith said her government will listen to municipal leaders to gauge how such a move will impact them. No decision will be made until everyone is consulted, she said.
The replacement of the RCMP by a provincial police force is opposed by most rural municipalities in Alberta, said RMA president Paul McLauchlin during an interview Nov. 9. “We haven’t changed our resolution.”
The association has estimated it will cost $366 million to make the transition to the new force. Alberta will also lose the 30 percent of RCMP policing costs covered by the federal government.
“It’s going to cost Albertans money, and municipalities, no matter what, right?” said McLauchlin. “You lose all the federal funding.”
However, he said there wasn’t much of a discussion about the issue by provincial cabinet ministers who attended the four-day convention, which was held Nov. 7-10 at the Edmonton Convention Centre. “I heard a little bit — one question came up.”
Creating a provincial police force will help fill in gaps in service for farmers and other rural residents, better protecting them against criminals, said then-Justice Minister Kaycee Madu in 2021. “The goal for us is community policing,” he told a town hall meeting on rural crime held in Claresholm, Alta.
McLauchlin said the initiative is instead part of the Alberta government’s attempts to assert itself against the federal government. “It’s totally political … it doesn’t match what the problem is. That’s the thing. The problem is … looking at addictions and poverty. That’s the problem.”
However, Smith’s mandate letter to Ellis said he should “make mental health and addictions recovery a central component to effective community policing and corrections. This will involve working across jurisdictional and ministerial boundaries as collaboration will be needed with other departments, municipalities, police services, and community-based organizations.”
The letter promoted the alignment of the provincial police force with mental health and addiction crisis response resources, including “safe transportation of patients and access to health services, in co-operation with the minister of mental health and addictions.”
Smith also directed Ellis to work with Minister of Municipal Affairs Rebecca Schulz to begin establishing a regional approach to policing in Alberta. It will include “working with municipalities and local law enforcement agencies to ensure a sharing of services, data and communications is in place to lead to improved outcomes for both released offenders and the public.”
The provincial government has said it was looking at creating an augmented police system, said McLauchlin. It would involve creating a small provincial force in some areas of Alberta “and learning from that from a cost perspective and deployment,” he said.
“And I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually do that… that’s all I can see right now, but we don’t know, and we need the details of it.” Smith’s mandate letter also directed Ellis to review the education and training curriculum for sheriffs “with a view to bringing skills into alignment so sheriffs can assist in a broader scope of policing.”
