Photo by Curtis Galbraith.

By Curtis Galbraith

City Hall

RCMP, ambulances, municipal funding to be discussed at Spring Municipal Leaders Caucus

Mar 9, 2022 | 6:00 AM

More than 300 municipal politicians from around Alberta will gather in Edmonton today and tomorrow for the Spring Municipal Leaders Caucus.

One topic up for discussion will be the possibility of the RCMP being replaced with a new Alberta police force.

Alberta Municipalities director and Grande Prairie city councillor Dylan Bressey says the group wants to know what municipalities think of Alberta going with its own police force.

“There are certainly a number of our members who have formally, as council motions, taken opposition to the Alberta provincial police as individual councils, so now we want to see what does our membership as a whole believes.”

“There definitely are a lot of folks who have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns about what this model could potentially look like.”

Meaningful Mementos

Remembering Someone You've Lost at Christmas

Dec 03, 2024

Seasonal Sorrow

How Do You Get Through The Holidays When You're Grieving?

Nov 01, 2024

Upcoming Events at Oliver's

Grief & Loss and Estate Planning Seminars

Oct 02, 2024

Bressey says the board of Alberta Municipalities wants to know why a provincial police service would be needed to implement things like mental health supports and civilian oversight rather than having the RCMP do the same things.

Bressey adds municipal infrastructure funding will also be among the discussion topics.

He says there has been a “massive reduction” in provincial funding in recent years. Grants have also been reduced and the federal and provincial governments have increased the cost of policing.

“Now what we’re trying to figure out is we know what the total pot of infrastructure funding from the province is going to be going forward, but we don’t yet know how that is going to be split up.”

“One thing we will be doing this week is the Alberta Municipalities board will be sharing some of the early work it has done to start creating recommendations to the province of … here is how we think you should split up the reduced funding.”

Problems with ambulance services will be among the discussion topics.

Bressey says there have been red alerts across the province. This means ambulances are not available to those who may need one.

“And that is a big concern, especially (for) members that are in more isolated areas where ambulances are getting sucked into the bigger centres.”

“It has been an issue in Grande Prairie, and we have had red alerts in the City of Grande Prairie, but it has been an even bigger issue in isolated towns and … villages away from a major centre.”

Bressey says there has been a huge increase in call volumes in the last couple years, somewhere close to 30 per cent. Difficult working conditions have made it hard to keep paramedics. He says opioids and a big increase in calls to do transfers within and between facilities have led to the increase in calls.

He adds the province has come up with a plan to address the problem and this will be discussed at the caucus.