The way peace officers are governed in Alberta would seem to leave a lot to be desired.
With the town council approving a policy allowing the possibility of the community peace officer to have access to a shotgun — itself undoubtedly a good move in that it provides a necessary tool for this man to do his job properly — the question of why peace officers don’t carry side arms is a question that inevitably comes up.
In Alberta, members of the RCMP, municipal police forces and Alberta Sheriffs are all allowed to carry weapons, and that makes a lot of sense. You’re out there dealing with criminals who have access to weapons whether or not they’re supposed, so you’re going to want to have a means to defend yourself as a last resort.
Of course peace officers don’t enforce the same breadth of criminal conduct as police officers, and aren’t transporting prisoners like the sheriffs do, along with their many other tasks.
But peace officers nonetheless come into contact with the same potentially dangerous characters as any other law-enforcement officials. To suggest that simply because they’re not enforcing Criminal Code matters that they don’t need the same means of defence is a little uncomfortable.
It has become abundantly clear in Alberta and in Canada as a whole that there are people out there who are willing and able to do serious harm to law-enforcement officials.
We’re now a decade past the tragedy in Mayerthorpe, but the tragedy in Sturgeon County is just weeks old. In that case, one of the men shot was a volunteer auxiliary constable who was not carrying a gun.
We don’t need to look much further to find examples of peace officers, just like the ones working in the Westlock area, being shot and killed in the line of duty. Rod Lazenby, a peace officer in Priddis, suffered that tragic fate in 2012 when he was investigating a dog complaint.
The fact is that even in enforcing the range of provincial acts with which peace officers are entrusted, they are bound to encounter the same kinds of nut-jobs as any other law-enforcement official.
It’s time to stop with the double standard, and give these public servants all the tools they need to do their job safely.
