INNISFAIL — Mayor Jean Barclay and several councillors went to Olds this month to hear a presentation on whether the RCMP should be replaced by a provincial police force and she still believes the RCMP is the best outfit to handle municipal policing.
“We have a great relationship with the RCMP in this community. I hear things like an Alberta Provincial Police (APP) force will provide more community policing,” said Barclay. “Well, we have community policing. We have a student resource officer. That is community policing. We have our policing committee that the RCMP participates in. That is community policing.
“There is just so many unanswered questions with the other model (APP) at this point in time.”
The presentation, held before an audience of 35 at Olds College on Feb. 2, was hosted by National Police Federation (NPF) directors Jeff McGowan and Kevin R. Halwa. The NPF acts as a union for RCMP members. The presentation was part of the Keep Alberta RCMP tour.
Barclay went to the forum with councillors Don Harrison, Janice Wing, Gavin Bates and chief administrative officer Todd Becker.
Council from the last term officially supported the existing RCMP model, but did not have all of the information in front of them at that time, including the Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC) report commissioned by the provincial government and released publicly last November.
“I would certainly urge residents and community members to be informed about this discussion that is going on,” said Barclay, adding she’s seen the presentation previously through Alberta Municipalities.
“I think the data from the surveys they collected on whether Albertans support this move is rather eye opening.”
She said data for rural Central Alberta communities showed that 81 per cent of survey respondents support the RCMP. Barclay said the main concerns are the transition cost from the RCMP to a provincial police force, along with recruitment.
Halwa noted two proposed models of a provincial police service were advanced in the PWC report.
He said Model A would result in a total of 4,945 staff, including 1,613 fully-trained police officers and would cost $734 million a year.
Model B would also result in 4,945 staff but would include 3,153 fully-trained police officers and cost a projected $759 million a year.
He said the RCMP service currently provided in Alberta has 5,055 employees, including 3,097 fully-trained police officers and costs $595 million a year.
“That (cost) is not including things like equipment, vehicles and training facilities and on and on and on,” said Barclay. “So, there is a lot of unanswered questions about this,” said Barclay, noting that the federal government pays 30 per cent of RCMP costs in Alberta, which now works out to about $185 million.
“We also understand that if there is a severe crime in the community, such as a murder, that an Alberta Provincial Police service would not have the expertise to investigate that, so the RCMP would be brought in and that would be billed to the community,” she added. “That could cost upwards of up $1 million, is what we have been told.”
As for the next step for Innisfail, Barclay noted Alberta Municipalities has done a lot of work on the issue, including a presentation to elected officials three weeks ago.
“As elected officials, we are gathering the evidence, as are they. We will continue this dialogue. The next step is for all of council to be brought up to speed on the PWC report and then they can have a discussion about it and go from there,” said Barclay, adding she expects that discussion to happen sometime in March.
— With files from Doug Collie
