Town unsatisfied with policing model promises

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Town of Pincher Creek council made the motion to direct administration to prepare a letter outlining concerns regarding the province’s new police funding model.

Council voted on the motion after discussions during a meeting which included the M.D. of Pincher Creek, Crowsnest Pass, the M.D. of Willow Creek, Claresholm, Nanton, and Fort Macleod, who discussed what impact the new funding model would have with Marlin Degrand, Executive Director of the Ministry of Justice and Solicitor General, who was representing Assistant Deputy Minister Bill Sweeney, and MLA Roger Reid.

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Mayor Don Anderberg and Chief Administrative Officer Laurie Wilgosh attended the meeting, and Anderberg said the information received put him at unease.

“There was a lot of discussion about this subject. The meeting went on for three hours,” said Anderberg.

“There were a lot of questions about why are we being required to pay for additional policing. The first issue is that the province wants our money on the first of April,” he said.

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“The question was asked, do we get our police officers first of April? No. They didn’t actually give us a date for when that was going to happen.”

Anderberg said the municipalities at the meeting shared similar feelings about paying for a service that they wouldn’t actually receive.

“They feel that they can fill those 300 positions and 200 support staff over a period of time, but they didn’t give us an exact date,” said Anderberg.

“The feeling among the group was, if you’re running a business and somebody comes to sell you something, then you expect, before you actually cut a cheque for it, that you actually will see the product, or will be able to ask when the product is going to show up,” he said.

“In this case, it’s just send the money and just trust that things are going to happen. The unfortunate part is, that would be okay in my mind if they want 300 more officers and they’re going to produce them—but what we’re paying for now, and we are paying because we’re all paying income tax… and part of that money is for police services—in our case we’re supposed to have 11 members in our detachment, and if we’re only at seven then are we getting our money’s worth?”

He said there’s also the issue surrounding the municipalities involved that none of their detachments are currently running at full capacity, including Pincher Creek.

“This very interesting issue that came into the fore is that none of our detachments are at full strength, or have been for a long time. Some of us have been from time to time over the past 15 years,” said Anderberg.

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“Crowsnest Pass and everybody in the group haven’t had full strength at their detachments to the point where… they might be at 70 per cent capacity—more likely 60 per cent. That represents quite a few bodies in this area,” he said.

He said questions arose at the meeting as to when the province would fill already vacant positions, which also went unanswered.

Anderberg said it wasn’t an entirely negative meeting, and it was helpful to be up-to-date with the provinces objectives.

“The long and short of it is that it was really enlightening, because everybody’s in the same boat,” he said.

While answers were short for the municipalities at the meeting, Anderberg said there’s hope that concerns would be addressed.

“It was quite an interesting discussion, and there’s a lot of questions to be answered by somebody. There were a lot of questions asked, (Degrand) took a lot of information back with him to get answers—and (so did Reid),” he said.

He said the province demanding payments to add more police officers when current detachments are already under capacity caused him to question the value of the new police funding model.

“When the province comes and says give another $250,000 because they need more police people, and they can’t even tell you when they’re going to produce them, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth,” said Anderberg.

“We weren’t alone. There’s letters from Willow Creek, Nanton, Fort Macleod, all concerned with the same issue.”

The letter will come back to the next council meeting, before it is sent to Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Doug Schweitzer, Premier Jason Kenney, MLA Roger Reid, Executive Director Marlin Degrand, and AUMA President Barry Morishita.