Establishing Our Own Alberta Provincial Police Force

First off having an Alberta Provincial Police Force (APPF) does not mean getting rid of the RCMP. It simply means modernizing the policing services for Albertans. Policing is not about heritage; it is about catching the bad guys.

If an Alberta Provincial Police Force (APPF) were created, there would still be a large contingent of RCMP working in Alberta. A large number of currently serving RCMP members from Alberta (“K” Division) and many members from the RCMP in other Provinces (Divisions) would likely apply for membership in the APPF. This would afford recruiters for the new Police Service to be very selective in their recruiting.

RCMP would still be in Alberta to enforce federal statutes;

a) Economic Crime (inter-provincial and Commercial)
b) Customs & Excise Acts (Smuggling goods i.e. tobacco, liquor and guns.)
c) Immigration Act.
d) Narcotic drugs/trafficking/inter-provincial/international.
e) In addition, RCMP members would still remain within integrated enforcement units targeting gangs as part of a national strategy.
f) RCMP could actually be a more specialized police service much like the FBI.
g) RCMP would still police Federal Parks, Banff and Jasper.
h) RCMP would still police Indian Reserves.

An Alberta Provincial Police Force (APPF) would (like Ontario and Quebec’s Provincial Police forces) concentrate on local law enforcement. The Provincial Police would enforce;

a) Provincial liquor laws/statutes.
b) Provincial traffic laws/statutes.
c) Local drug trafficking.
d) Local major/minor crimes/provincial statutes.
e) Domestic crime/theft/assaults etc.
f) Domestic disputes etc.
g) By-law enforcement responsibility.
h) Of course, they too would be part of integrated enforcement units RCMP and municipal police services like Calgary, Edmonton, Medicine Hat & Lethbridge/Coaldale.

An Alberta Police Force would escape the substantial overhead cost of federal bilingualism and would better reflect western values and priorities.

In deciding whether or not establishing an Alberta Provincial Police Force would be a good idea, ask yourself this question:

Would you sooner have your local Police Force answering to and reporting to the Federal government in Ottawa or to our Provincial government in Edmonton?

Our own Provincial Police Force would police provincial jurisdiction statutes and those responsibilities which fall under provincial responsibilities much like Quebec and Ontario. One important benefit is an Alberta Provincial Police Force would report directly to a Provincial Government in Edmonton rather than like the RCMP to an out of touch Federal Government in Ottawa.

Here's another question to ask yourself:

Would you not rather see a federal RCMP force arresting drug traffickers than manning check-stops, chasing speeders and attending to domestic disputes?

Few Albertans will remember today that Alberta once had its own provincial police force.

The Alberta Provincial Police was created in 1917 and served Albertans very well. During the years the Alberta Provincial Police existed, it served Albertans better than the RCMP’s forerunner, the Royal North West Mounted Police (RNWMP).

The Alberta Provincial Police was well liked and did not have the same reluctance to enforce provincial law as did the RNWMP. It was dissolved in 1932 because of the Great Depression and the RNWMP’s successor, the RCMP, was brought in.

With the Provincial Police Service Agreement for the RCMP set to expire in 2012, Albertans should plan now to restore the Alberta Provincial Police force.

There are two main reasons for Albertans to restore their Alberta Provincial Police force:

Comparing the costs of policing in provinces with their own provincial police force with provinces that don’t and rely on the RCMP provides a good base of comparison.

Using the Ontario Provincial Police force (OPP) as a basis of comparison, RCMP detachments in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are more expensive to run than are equivalent OPP departments.

Comparing like with like, the RCMP is more expensive on average than the OPP in cities and towns of all sizes. (Click here to see a graph of average per capita costs of the RCMP and OPP).

If it works for Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland why not Alberta?

A recent study pointed out, “the primary disadvantage of a federal police... is the absence of any local input or local influence on actual policing practices in the several and varied rural and small-town communities across the province.”

In the past, the provincially controlled Alberta Provincial Police proved to be much more in tune with the communities they policed than the RNWMP force they replaced. Plus, they took their orders from Edmonton, not Ottawa, and as a result, faithfully enforced provincial law. The same cannot be said of the RNWMP which is why they were replaced by the Alberta Provincial Police.

Today, RCMP policing in Alberta has increasingly become unpopular. Open-ended submissions to a provincial government review committee studying policing arrangements in the province revealed a lot of dissatisfaction with the RCMP. Of the 151 open-ended public submissions on just about every issue pertaining to policing in Alberta:

• 25 explicitly called for some alternative to the RCMP
• 25 submissions implied a different policing model than currently exists
• only 17 were in favour of keeping the status quo
(the rest of the submissions were unrelated)

Restoring the Alberta Provincial Police would not remove the RCMP from the province anymore than it has provinces like Ontario, Quebec or Newfoundland which have their own provincial police forces.

Freed from municipal policing, the RCMP could focus more on genuine federal issues: organized crime, internal security, interdiction of illegal immigrants, and crimes that occur interprovincially such as parolees who go missing.

As a result, Alberta would be doubly better off. It would have a more cost effective and locally tuned police force while the RCMP could concentrate on the things it is better suited for.

For these reasons, the Alberta Residents League believes it’s time to bring back the Alberta Provincial Police.

"one of the biggest myths in Canadian law enforcement is a belief that RCMP policing is less expensive than municipal or regional policing”

Peter Kawalilak
President,
Alberta Federation of Police Associations

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