FORT MACLEOD — Alberta’s solicitor general is promising to fight to ensure the provincial government follows through on its promise to build a police training college in Fort Macleod.
Frank Oberle made the pledge Tuesday night at a community meeting in the southern Alberta town.
But the minister also made it clear there are no guarantees the project that residents have been counting on to bolster the local economy will ever go ahead.
“I won’t promise anything beyond my control but I have promised I will fight for the thing, and I will,” Oberle told a crowd of more than 200 people.
“I understand what this facility means to your community — I get that,” Oberle said. “I’m going to work my tail off, because I think it’s the right community and the right facility.”
Oberle says there is no money earmarked for the college in Alberta’s capital project plan. He says he will come up with a new plan for the project and try to get cabinet to support it.
The Alberta Police and Peace Officer Training Centre, promised to Fort Macleod after an intense bidding process in 2006, was first discussed in 1999 when a single training facility for enforcement officers was recommended at a policing summit in Calgary. Construction was to begin in 2007, but the sod remains unturned.
The Town of Fort Macleod has already upgraded its water and sewage facilities in preparation for the college.
The province has designated the college as a private-public partnership but says it has not been able to find any private funding.
Fort Macleod Mayor Shawn Patience said he’s known for more than three years the province wanted the college to be funded with a P3 model.
“It has to be considered a priority before it can be considered for a P3,” Patience said.
“We’ve heard over and over that it’s a funding issue. It’s not a funding issue, Mr. Minister, it’s an issue of political will.”
Oberle is the fifth solicitor general to have the college project in his portfolio.
The province’s new budget makes no mention of the training centre.
On Feb. 23, members of town council went to the legislature to meet with Oberle and Treasury Board President Lloyd Snelgrove to express frustration over the low priority the government seems to have placed on the college. (Lethbridge Herald)