The Alberta government’s announcement it is considering making sheriffs a stand-alone police force came as a complete surprise to municipal leaders and the sheriffs union.
Rural Municipalities of Alberta president Paul McLauchlin said when he heard on Wednesday of the government’s plan to introduce legislation to create a new police agency he wondered if he had somehow missed something.
“When this came out, I had to call a couple of my colleagues and ask, ‘Was there any heads-up on this?’
“They said, ‘Nope, this is 100 per cent created by government without corresponding with us and was never communicated to us,” McLauchlin said on Thursday.
“It’s kind of frustrating again that the government continues to go down that path.”
Making it even more irksome is that under a new police funding model introduced a number of years ago, small and rural municipalities now pay 30 per cent of their policing costs, which used to be covered by the province.
If they are paying a share, municipal leaders have repeatedly argued they want a bigger say in policing and public safety decision-making.
The RMA has also pushed the province to make good on its promise to set up a police advisory board with municipal representation that would help set policing priorities. An interim board, was formed but its permanent replacement has yet to happen.
McLauchlin said at this stage he is not opposed to a police agency that the government said would be staffed with officers with police powers and who would work alongside RCMP, municipal and First Nations forces.
“A lot of folks are saying this is a segue to an Alberta provincial police force (which the RMA and Alberta Municipalities of Alberta do not support).
“That’s probably a likelihood, but maybe not. Our concern all along is we’ve always wanted to make sure we’re putting those resources in locally. That’s how you fight local crime.
“This is just another layer of red tape and one of the situations where (the question arises) are you actually the boots-on-the-ground issues that we think are important.
“Maybe this will help. We’ll see how this works.”
Rural municipal representatives will be gathering in Edmonton next week for RMA’s spring conference and Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis will be there. He can expect to get a lot of questions, said McLauchlin.
Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), which represents the province’s sheriffs, said they were seeking further answers from the government following the “surprise announcement.”
“Sheriffs perform vital work, as the government acknowledged yesterday, so we are disappointed that there was no consultation with their union before the announcement was made,” said AUPE vice-president Bobby-Joe Borody in a statement Thursday.
“Sheriffs want to know that their rights will be protected and they will be properly supported in their duties.”
The union says sheriffs will want to know how their duties would change, whether they would get more training if needed and whether they will pay an appropriate rate for their expanded duties.
It is also unclear if the program will be expanded to include Fish and Wildlife officers, who with Sheriff Highway Patrol officers, have been part of the Rural Alberta Provincial Integrated Defence (RAPID) Response since 2021. The 400 officers cover most of the areas where RCMP patrol.