BOYLE – Village of Boyle officials weren’t all that impressed after a recent meeting with Minister of Justice Tyler Shandro, coming out of it with little more understanding of the Alberta government’s push for a provincial police force.
At the village’s July 6 regular meeting, mayor, councillors and administration weighed in briefly on the virtual meeting they attended with officials from the County of Barrhead and the minister June 29 as they discussed another request from the National Police Federation to get behind the organization’s lobby effort to retain the RCMP as Alberta’s main policing force, while the province continues to explore a potential provincial police force.
It’s a request council has steadfastly declined to support, or oppose, for that matter, as they feel they haven’t got the whole story from either of the parties.
“It seems like the for and against camps are so anxious to get everybody to make a decision for or against that they’re not telling us everything, and it seems to me that when you’re hiding stuff and forcing stuff … I just don’t get it,” said mayor Colin Derko, as council reviewed the NPF letter, the latest of several received in the last year.
Derko also expressed his surprise and discouragement that Alberta Municipalities sided with the NPF earlier this year. That said, 66 Alberta municipalities — urban and rural — have officially taken the side of the NPF and RCMP, including the Town of Westlock, while other local municipalities continue to straddle the fence like Boyle.
Last month, the province also announced it was extending the consultation process.
“By not signing this, it doesn't mean I don’t agree, I just don't like the amount of information that we are not getting. That’s what concerns me. The most information we're getting is minimal and it's like Swiss cheese,” Derko went on to say, adding he’s not ready to sign anything at this point.
“Every time I asked a minister, or I talk to the premier directly on it, I'll bring up a point that somebody brings up to me … and they blow it right away and say, ‘Those aren’t the facts and that's not the truth at all.’”
Coun. Barb Smith noted that as elected officials, part of their job is to be open-minded and there was one thing in particular that made a provincial force an attractive idea to her — the potential for more regional autonomy.
Derko agreed, saying there is a very big difference between not only urban and rural policing, but rural policing in the east and west as well.
“Some people think that it's an attack on the RCMP as an organization, but it's not, things have changed and now more than ever, there is a division between east and west as far as the expectations of a police force,” he said. “Why not have a police force that's in tune to those differences and is trained for those differences?”
Council accepted the NPF letter as information, saying they would remain open to both sides.
