A policing expert is not surprised to see Alberta Municipalities reject the provincial government's proposal for a provincial police force.
University of Alberta Criminology professor Temitope Oriola said there needed to be more consultation with municipalities before communities would get on board with the switch toward a provincially-run police force and away from the current arrangement with RCMP.
“I wasn't surprised. I think that there needed to be a degree of consultation before such an announcement was made, and it didn’t seem as robust as it should be,” Oriola said.
In March at the Alberta Municipalities conference, members voted to reject the provincial police force model and instead supported keeping the RCMP.
Oriola said a new provincial police force could be a good opportunity to re-imagine policing and solve problems, such as lack of diversity and inclusion, but if the province is just going to move forward with a copy of the RCMP model, it isn’t worth the money to make the switch.
“This offers an opportunity to begin on a fresh slate by setting up a police service built on the lessons we have learned from existing policies and practices regarding policing, not just from Alberta, but from our peer countries,” Oriola said.
The province could launch a new police force and learn from other successful jurisdictions to make sure there is a higher educational requirement to join the police force.
“Police services where you have predominantly or exclusively graduate forces, they tend to do better than those for which Grade 12 is the minimum entry level,” Oriola said.
Better gender representation would also help improve the police force, Oriola said, because women tend to not rely on force and are therefore less likely to use excessive force in the line of duty.
A new police force could also usher in an era of more ethno-cultural diversity, which would be beneficial to policing outcomes, Oriola said.
But there are cost implications to switching over to a provincially-run police force.
In November, Alberta unveiled a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers which doesn’t have the exact details on how much the proposed provincial police force would cost residents, but the plan would see Alberta lose $170 million from federal subsidies for the RCMP.
The process to transition away from the current system where much of the province, and almost all of rural Alberta, is policed by the RCMP to a provincial system would take up to six years, with the last two years bringing in the Alberta Provincial Police Service. The transition would cost between $366 million and $371 million.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has said in the past that municipalities won’t pay more for police services, but since Alberta has started exploring the option of a provincial police force, there has been pushback from local communities.
Since the province first announced it was exploring a provincial police force, dozens of municipalities across the province have spoken out against its establishment, including Morinville, Bonnyville, Sundre, Crowsnest Pass, and St. Albert.
One of the drivers to consider a provincially-run police force has been a rise in rural crime and slow response times for rural residents, and Oriola, who was a special advisor during the consultation process with Alberta, said response rates to rural crime was an issue brought up many times.
“People felt that they weren't getting enough enforcement support like they wanted,” Oriola said.
But tackling rural crime is a complex issue and Oriola said it can’t just be done through policing alone.
“Crime is an outcome of a complex constellation of variables,” Oriola said.
Factors such as experiences with homelessness, growing up in poverty, suicidal ideation, alcoholism, unemployment, and poor opportunities for education are all factors that contribute to the sociological picture of crime.
“As long as those variables, those ingredients of crime are there, then we will keep dealing with the final product, rather than the raw materials,” Oriola said.
