The next steps for a new option for municipal policing were discussed by Government of Alberta officials on Wednesday, July 3rd.
Created last year, the Independent Agency Police Service will be renamed the Alberta Sheriffs Police Service and once operational Premier Danielle Smith notes it will – among other things – complement the province’s current police services including the RCMP, Indigenous policing services, and municipal police.
According to the Premier, this is about getting good policing for those areas that are currently being policed by the RCMP. She says “as we mentioned there is 80 percent of people who already have a local police service, a municipal force, but we have vacancies that have resulted in a delay in response time. Sometime for days, sometimes issues not getting followed up on at all and that is not delivering good policing. That’s what this is about is to fill some of those gaps, which we’ve already done.”
Smith notes the province has a SCAN (Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods) Force under the Alberta Sheriffs which shuts down drug houses, they’ve got a surveillance team, they’ve got a fugitive apprehension team, they’ve got a border security team, and many of those entities work hand in glove with ALERT, municipal forces, and even the RCMP. She says “I’m just mindful that the federal government issued a white paper saying that they think the role of the RCMP should change and so that means that we’ve got to ensure that we don’t have any gaps. That is what this is about is making sure our rural communities get the response time that they deserve.”
Mike Ellis, Alberta’s Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services, states that they are paying close attention to developments at the national level with the federal government releasing a white paper proposing that the RCMP would gradually withdraw from contract policing. He says “the report titled ‘A Police Vision For Canada: Modernizing The RCMP’ states that the federal government should be committed to working closely with the provinces to support a transition away from contract policing. It reports that rising costs, growing vacancies, structural staff shortages within the RCMP are challenges for communities right across Canada. This problem is not unique to Alberta. The government of Canada’s vision is to transform the RCMP into a federal policing organization focused on the most serious crimes affecting Canadians.” Ellis points out that the expiration of the police service agreements in 2032 presents the first opportunity to implement this phase of policing in Canada, according to Public Safety Canada.
Sat Parhar was named the first chief of the Independent Agency Police Service. He most recently served as the deputy chief of the Calgary Police Service.
