Despite the province underlining that Alberta's government has not yet made a definitive decision about establishing a police service, residents across the province are voicing their opinions on the plans. 

Discover Airdrie reached out to Airdronians via social media and asked what the city's residents think of a provincial police force.  

"If the government can't handle Alberta's Health Care System, why should we think they will do better with the police?" asked one Airdrie resident.  

"1100000% NO. the stupidest decision on SO many levels. The government cannot handle organizations they currently have (AHS, Legal Aid to name a few) how can we possibly expect them to run a competent Law Enforcement Agency," remarked another Airdronian. 

Another Airdrie resident also echoed the sentiment stating that "the provincial government can’t handle health care or education." 

"An absolute NO from me. Keep the RCMP," stated another. 

However, one individual who cited the fact that they grew up in the province of Ontario, which has the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police Force) wrote it may be a positive step for Alberta. 

"To be honest if they're run like that squad was and not like the RCMP is run out here, only focusing on window tint and speeding and putting more focus onto solving actual crimes like the recent uptick in vehicle thefts and break-ins I'm all for it to be honest. The police need to be out solving actual crimes rather than trying to generate revenue. It seems to me like over the past 5 years fewer and fewer actual crimes are being solved and if they are the criminals are just released immediately back into society to start doing crimes all over again." 

Other Airdronians have underlined the costs, or perhaps specifically the lack of information regarding just how much a provincial police force would cost the province, and subsequently taxpayers. 

"A provincial police force is the stupidest idea ever. Does the government not truly understand the insurmountable cost to taxpayers for this? Starting up a provincial police not only requires hiring officers, training, admin staff and support- dispatchers, call takers, etc.- but also will lose our federal grants and support that using the RCMP provides. Put the focus and time in the government to fixing the health care crisis and education issues rather than some ego trip into a provincial police force." 

Some of the opinions of Airdronians seem to follow the same sentiment of a report released at the end of April by the National Police Federation, the labour union that represents 20,000 RCMP members across Canada and the globe, the majority of Alberta’s residents do not want new provincial police.  

According to the Your Police – Your Future: Listening to Albertans report, Albertans want to see, “funding to prioritize improving the justice system, strengthening social services, and increasing police resources. Participants felt that these targeted investments would bring better and more immediate results to address crime within communities.”  

The KeepAlbertaRCMP Community Engagement Tour, which also had a stop in Airdrie last February as well as across the province saw over 1,000 participants and 38 in-person engagement sessions. The NPF conducted research between 2020 and 2022, which showed that only 9 per cent of those surveyed supported the idea of replacing the RCMP with a provincial police force. A total of 5,160 respondents engaged in several surveys over the last two years.  

The Alberta Municipalities Association also issued a statement on the province's announcement. According to the association, representatives received a high-level briefing from Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro and senior ministry officials on the Government of Alberta’s deployment plan for provincial police service on Tuesday, August 16.

"To start, we do not believe enough consultation and engagement occurred between the Government of Alberta, local governments and key stakeholders like us since October 29, 2021, when the provincial government released its Alberta Provincial Police Service (APPS) transition study final report."

Deputy Commissioner of the RCMP Curtis Zablocki surmised province's proposed framework appears to be very similar to the current model of the Alberta RCMP. 

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