‘That’s the $64,000 question’: National Police Federation questions where Alberta will find staff for new provincial agency

National Police Federation's, Kevin Halwa, speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the government’s plans for a provincial police agency

National Police Federation Prairie Director Kevin Halwa speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the government’s plans for a provincial police agency.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: How big a step forward is this in the actual creation of a provincial police force?

Kevin Halwa: That’s unfortunately still yet to be seen. This is still a plan that has a lot more questions than it does answers, and people are starting to ask those questions.

Whether it’s the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, or Alberta Municipalities, or the people actually paying the bills, a lot of the framework around it has not been explained, and rightfully so there’s still some more questions.

I don’t really know yet because they have not explained that very well at all. In the entirety of Canada there’s only about 64,000 police officers policing all over the country. That’s a very limited pool of people that are interested in doing this sort of work to begin with.

Where is the province is going to find a bunch more people to start up a new service? I don’t know. That’s the $64,000 question.

MH: How challenged do you expect the government to be to staff up?

KH: We can use the Surrey police transition as an example. They expected that to go very smoothly and to be staffed up very quickly. We’re now in year seven, still not completely staffed up, and they were only looking for 800 there. We’re looking for way more than that here to police this new agency.

Grande Prairie’s also going through a transition, they’re yet to be fully staffed up. Their due date is coming very quickly, March of next year, and I highly suspect that they won’t be ready for March 31 and will need an extension.

MH: What will it take to draw your members away from the RCMP and embrace more permanent roots in Alberta with a change in uniform?

KH: The chance of our members moving over to a new agency is very slim. There will be some that decide to take it on as a second career after doing a full career with the Mounties. Take a pension and then take another paycheck working for somebody else, that’s fine. But to get Mounties, or at least a large number of them, to leave the red serge and to go over to a new and unproven agency, is highly stretched to suspect that would happen.

That’s what they believed would happen, and not what we believe, but that’s what the City of Surrey believed would happened there. That’s what the city of Grande Prairie decided would happen here, and they it’s just not happening in the in the huge numbers that they expected it to be happening.

So to expect any different when we’re talking about a provincial police service or a sheriff’s service, whatever we’re calling this independent agency, I’m not buying it.

MH: Let’s say they do staff up, they do become operational. What’s the expectation for how this provincial police service and the RCMP will coexist within the current law enforcement environment in Alberta?

KH: That’s something that hasn’t been laid out. We always welcome collaboration when it’s genuine and in the best interest of public safety, but that being said, there’s been a consistent lack of clarity and transparency around what this proposed service would actually look like.

Without a concrete plan, it’s really difficult to understand how we would work together, existing with other agencies. Albertans deserve answers and not uncertainty, and so far, all of you’ve got is uncertainty.

MH: The RCMP is contracted to provide police services in Alberta, a contract that extends to 2032.

To what degree do you expect the build out of this new agency to draw on the financial resources that fund the RCMP contract?

KH: It’s hard to say. The previous federal public safety minister has made it clear that there’s full intention to renew that contract. He sent letters to every single provincial contract division in the country explaining that.

To suspect that the Mounties are going anywhere come 2032, I think it’s ridiculous to think that at this point.

There’s only so many ways you can split it all. I suspect the money in the province will become tight.

MH: Where do you think all of this will leave municipalities, given they’re being presented with the option of contracting this new police agency as a replacement for the RCMP locally?

KH: It’s been said before by municipalities that when we’re talking municipal budgets, we’re counting pennies, not dollars. Every nickel really does make a difference when we’re talking municipalities.

So far from the municipalities that we’ve spoken to, they’re not seeing any bigger bang for the buck when changing. There is great savings and policing with the Mounties due to the size of the operation. There’s costs to be saved there and to start all over again with something else, I don’t see any savings there unless you’re going to start with a drastic cut in services,

MH: Where do you think this leaves relations between the RCMP and the Alberta government with just under seven years left in the contract?

KH: That’s hard to say. We would know better if they were willing to speak with us more.