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(Image Credit: Everything GP Staff/Nathaniel Leigh)
By Nathaniel Leigh
Grande Prairie Police Service

GPPS officially police of jurisdiction for Grande Prairie

Oct 21, 2026 | 4:23 PM

The Grande Prairie Police Service is now officially the police of jurisdiction for the City of Grande Prairie.

As of 6:00 a.m. Wednesday, October 21, 2026, GPPS officially assumed all city jurisdiction policing duties from the Grande Prairie RCMP detachment.


(Image Credit: Everything GP Staff/Nathaniel Leigh)

At a press conference in front of the former RCMP detachment building and now GPPS headquarters, Grande Prairie Mayor Jackie Clayton says the event marked an important milestone in GPPS’s journey, which began in 2018 when the City of Red Deer explored a service model review, leading to Grande Prairie City Council deciding in 2021 to explore other opportunities.

“We were hearing from our community that the RCMP was doing a great job of safety and being present in our community, but the mandate was not as localized as we hoped,” Clayton says. “Through that, Council made the decision to do a police service model review. From that decision and the results that we saw, we recognized that there was significant opportunity.”

Chief Dwayne Lakusta praised the transition team for helping to pull off the switch two years earlier than planned.

“It took an entire community, an entire team to come together,” Lakusta says. “We worked closely with all our partners, and that’s going to continue in the future and create oversight from the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services. The last service to be built in Alberta was 70 years ago, and there was no road map left. So, incredible fortune for my transition team for the work and all the support that we’ve encountered.”


(Image Credit: Everything GP Staff/Nathaniel Leigh)

Mayor Clayton says while the fast transition was impressive, it was more costly than initially planned.

“The original transition was intended to be longer, which would have allowed us to spread that money over multiple years,” she says. “By going earlier, there was upfront money that was required ahead of schedule. So, we’re very happy the province was able to support us in this transition.”

Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services Mike Ellis attended the event, where he announced an additional $2 million in grant funding from the Government of Alberta would support the transition and the service’s dispatch centre.

“This is not just a dispatch centre for law enforcement but a dispatch centre for fire as well,” says Ellis. “The dispatch centre will assist in dispatching fire resources to areas all around the Grande Prairie area.”


(Image Credit: Everything GP Staff/Nathaniel leigh)

Chief Lakusta says the centre will help dispatch the right people for the right job.

“What that also allows us to do is free up our sworn police officers that can be more responsive to high-risk incidents where they’re required to deal with criminal matters or high-risk occurrences that pose public safety risks to residents of Grande Prairie,” Lakusta says.

“They’re able to handle critical incidents; they’re able to take volumes of calls to service,” says Ellis. “I think that’ something remarkable. I’ve said it many times before: when someone calls 911, regardless of where you are in the province, I expect somebody to go to that call, whether we’re talking about fire, police, or EMS.”

The Grande Prairie RCMP officers are relocating to a new detachment in Clairmont.


(Image Credit: Everything GP Staff/Nathaniel Leigh)

(Image Credit: Everything GP Staff/Nathaniel Leigh)

(Image Credit: Everything GP Staff/Nathaniel Leigh)
by Nathaniel Leigh