Alberta Municipalities want more details on provincial police service

Alberta Municipalities President Tyler Gandam speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the provincial government’s policing plans.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: In the government taking this next step to create an independent police agency, what kind of conversation is now happening around municipal council tables?

Tyler Gandam: You just heard the minister say that there’s going to be a higher level of service that’s going to be cheaper, we’d like to certainly see how that’s going to be. One of our big concerns is the response time that our rural communities are seeing for police response.

So it’ll be great to hear that we’re going to have a faster response time and a higher level of service, especially for our rural members. So definitely interested in having that conversation.

MH: How do you weigh the minister’s claims of cost savings, of more officers, and better service? What do you have to go on?

TG: So far, nothing. When they proposed this about four or five years ago, Alberta Municipalities was opposed to what the provincial government was proposing for a provincial police service because it was going to cost the same amount of money.

We’re going to have the same amount of officers, and then we were going to have, at that time, about a $400 million transition cost to move to a provincial police service versus what we had in place now with the RCMP.

I would love to hear how we’re going to save money on this, and I want to know how we’re going to improve the level of service for those rural communities that are struggling with RCMP or police response times.

MH: In presenting this as an option for municipalities to explore, what does that say to you about how the government is now approaching its push to create a provincial police service?

TG: I think having options is fantastic. We look at Grande Prairie now, who is switching to a municipal police force, and the province allowing them to move towards that and also helping fund that transition. I think it’s fantastic that municipalities have the option.

Councils, who are in the community every day, talking with residents and business owners, have a really good understanding of the need and maybe where some of those gaps are. So it’s fantastic if a municipality feels like a municipal police force, or the sheriffs coming in and offering that police service in their municipality, is going to do better for them.

It’s really going to come down to who’s funding this and where those cost savings going to come from.

MH: What kind of pressure does this put on municipalities as the government moves forward?

TG: I think those who have contracted policing with the RCMP, I don’t think it changes much for them. The province is saying that we’re going to be able to keep the RCMP, and if that’s the will of that municipality and that council, then I think things are status quo.

Where I think we’re going to see the changes is in the smaller communities, under 5,000, or those that don’t have detachments in their municipality or in their community. Having that option of a provincial police service being able to provide service there, versus the RCMP coming from a neighbouring detachment.

MH: Is there a momentum shift underway to lean more to the government’s moves? Because in the past, there’s been opposition coming from municipalities.

TG: Yeah, for sure. And again, it came down to where was that funding going to come from? We’re going to lose the federal supplement for municipalities. The federal government subsidizes police in Alberta or across the country, but yeah, $170, $180 million, plus the transition cost to move to a provincial police service. And then through that proposal, we weren’t seeing a change in the number of officers we’re going to have, or how that was going to increase the level of service.

MH: The Smith government introducing legislation to repeal all municipal codes of conduct. Where do you weigh in on the necessity of such a move?

TG: We’ve been talking with Minister McIver and the government about this for a little while, and I think it makes a lot of sense to have one code of conduct across the province, instead of 330 different codes of conduct in each of the municipalities. So I think we will support that moving forward.

One of the issues that we’re going to have with that, though, is the gap between when this legislation gets passed, and the new legislation is introduced and passed.

We’re not going to have codes of conduct for municipalities, and there won’t be the ability to sanction members of council when they are breaching those codes of conduct. So that little bit of a gap, I think, is going to be a hiccup in the big picture.

But with the province proposing an Integrity Commissioner, or an Ethics Commissioner, coming in and then working with both associations, RMA and Alberta Municipalities, to develop a code of conduct that would go province wide, I think that’s going to help a lot.

Some of the reasoning behind that, I’m not convinced about. Looking at some of the cases that had been tried or gone to court and felt like the codes of conduct had been weaponized, or the sanctions had been weaponized, I don’t think is taking into consideration that dozens of other codes of conduct breaches and sanctions that were implemented where council was able to rectify the problem on their own without it being a public issue.

MH: How much of a voice do you expect to have in building out a single code of conduct or some different form of replacement?

TG: I think we’re going to have a good opportunity with that. Between us and RMA, I think we’ve got the minister’s ear on that.

We’ve got a bunch of municipalities with codes of conduct, we’re going to be able to figure out what works, what hasn’t been working, and streamline that process.

Having a provincial Ethics Commissioner takes that away from the town or village or city manager and gives that back to the province, or a third party oversight, where CEOs aren’t the ones investigating or moving forward on a complaint about a member of council who is ultimately part of that board, who is their boss.

It makes for maybe an awkward situation sometimes if they’re having to investigate breach. So I think having that done third party through the province is going to help with alleviating some of those issues.