Alberta
Province funding 50 more Edmonton Police Service Officers to tackle high crime areas
Safer streets for Edmonton
Alberta’s government is fighting rising crime in Edmonton with an $8.3-million investment to help hire 50 new police officers.
Edmontonians have a right to walk through their city streets or take public transit without fearing for their safety. Due to rising acts of violence, the government is taking direct action to keep Edmontonians safe.
By investing in the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) to support their efforts to recruit, train and deploy 50 new officers, high-crime areas like transit centres and the downtown core will see increased police presence.
“Our government will do whatever it takes to address the concerning escalating crime rates, particularly in vital areas like public transit and the downtown core where social disorder is prevalent. This funding will help strengthen the capabilities of law enforcement and make sure they have the necessary tools and personnel to improve public safety and fight criminals who continue to prey on vulnerable residents.”
The EPS is actively recruiting new members for this initiative. These additional officers will be strategically placed in high-crime areas with the flexibility to be redeployed to other parts of the city based on evolving needs. Provincial funding will help pay for police officer salaries and benefits and equipment needs like vehicles, uniforms, radios and body-worn cameras.
“These are much-needed resources, and though hiring and training will take time before officers hit city streets, we know their presence will accelerate our existing efforts. We have redeployed our front-line resources to places like transit and the downtown and have increased recruit class sizes to get ahead of service demands, and these additional officers are the next step in tackling Edmonton’s high-crime areas. We are grateful for the funding and support of the provincial government and look forward to the impact the officers will have on our streets.”
“Edmontonians have been loud and clear that safe public spaces are a priority. The funding and prioritization of transit centres and the core is an investment in our shared, long-term commitment to create a safe and vibrant city.”
“The Edmonton Police Commission has advocated for police funding necessary to address the myriad community safety issues facing our city, and we appreciate the provincial government making good on its commitment to fund 50 additional front-line officers. This investment will help support the police service’s long-term strategy of making our streets safer.”
“The DRC appreciates the collaborative effort the Edmonton Police Service and provincial government have put into addressing high-crime areas. We know from other cities that the presence of law enforcement and proactive policing increases the perception of safety and can even reduce incidents of crime and disorder. Through this funding, we look forward to seeing more police deployed throughout the core, working towards a safer, more vibrant and more connected downtown.”
The addition of new officers builds on several actions the government has already taken to improve public safety on Edmonton’s streets, including implementing a pilot project to team Alberta Sheriffs with EPS officers, adding more local positions to the Sheriffs’ Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) unit, and a $5-million grant to improve safety on the city’s transit network.
Quick facts
- Funding breakdown:
- $4.5 million for officer salaries and benefits
- $2.5 million for one-time costs like vehicles, uniforms, radios and workstations
- $850,000 for ongoing technology costs
- $500,000 for one-time recruitment expansion efforts
Related news
- Transit safety and violent crime: Enough is enough (Apr 4, 2023)
- More sheriffs in Calgary and Edmonton (Nov 24, 2023)
Better data, better outcomes for Alberta students |
To help schools address classroom complexity, Alberta’s government will begin collecting annual data on class size and composition.
Over the past three years, Alberta has welcomed more than 80,000 new students. With this unprecedented growth, classroom complexity and class sizes are among the biggest issues facing schools and teachers across the province.
To meet this challenge head on, Alberta’s government will work with school boards to gather yearly data on class sizes and composition. This information will be used to better understand staffing, student needs and classroom complexity. School boards will be required to submit data on Alberta classrooms by Nov. 24, and by January, this data will be made publicly available and will then be released annually.
Data collected on classroom complexity will help the province understand and address issues in schools, including class sizes, and support strategic investments in classrooms. Over the next three years, school boards will be provided with funding to hire 3,000 teachers and 1,500 new education assistants to support students with complex needs.
“We are ready to work with school boards and teachers to address classroom complexity and class sizes. We have heard them loud and clear and we are taking bold action to address these issues.”
Alberta’s government is establishing a Class Size and Complexity Task Force to begin work immediately on identifying solutions to the challenges facing Alberta classrooms. Alongside new annual data collection, the task force will ensure every student gets the attention and support they need to succeed. Details about the task force will be shared in the coming weeks.
“This data will provide essential insight into classroom realities, guiding evidence-based decisions and advocating for sustainable funding to address complexity, ensuring every student and educator in Alberta has the support to thrive.”
Quick facts
To inform decisions on addressing classroom complexity, data will be collected on total numbers of:
- all staff, per school, including roles
- substitute teachers
- district staff, listed by job title
- students, per classroom, per school
- severe, mild/moderate, and gifted/talented students, per classroom, per school
- English as an additional language (EAL) students, per classroom, per school
- refugee students, per classroom, per school
- First Nations, Métis and Inuit students, per classroom, per school
- Individualized Program Plans, per classroom, per school
- students waitlisted for assessment, per classroom, per school
- incidents of aggression and violence
- $55 million was provided in Budget 2025 to address classroom complexity.
- 8.6 billion is being invested to build and renovate more than 130 schools across the province.
- Budget 2025 is investing $1.6 billion in learning support funding to help meet students’ specialized learning needs.
- Budget 2025 is investing $1.1 billion to hire more than 4,000 teachers and educational staff.
Alberta
How one major media torqued its coverage – in the take no prisoners words of a former Alberta premier
(Editor’s note: I was going to write on the media’s handling of the Alberta government’s decision to order striking teachers back to work and invoke Section 33 of the Charter in doing so. But former Alberta premier Jason Kenney provided such a fulsome dissection of an absence of balance and its consequences in terms of public trust on X that I asked him if The Rewrite could publish it. He said yes and here it is – Peter Menzies.)
By Jason Kenney
This
”story” is an object lesson for why trust in legacy media has plummeted, and alt right media audiences have grown.
Here CTV “digital news producer” @AngeMAmato (she/her) writes a story about “experts” calling the use of Sec. 33 “a threat to democracy.”
Who are the experts?
A left wing academic, and a left wing activist. The latter, Howard Sapers, is a former Liberal MLA (which the article does not mention) for a party that is so marginal, it has not elected an MLA in over a decade.
For good measure CTV goes on to quote two left wing union bosses, who of course are predictably outraged.
A more accurate headline would be “Four people on the left angry about use of Notwithstanding Clause.” Which is the opposite of news. It’s the ultimate “Dog Bites Man” non-story.
Did the CTV producer make any effort to post a balanced story by asking for comment from academics / lawyers / think tanks who support use of Sec. 33? Did she call the @CDNConstFound or the @MLInstitute’s Judicial Power Project? Did she attempt to reach any of these four scholars, who just published their views in a @nationalpost op-ed last week?
Did she have an editor who asked why her story lacked any attempt at balance?
And did anyone at CTV pause for a moment to ponder how tendentious it is to accuse a democratically elected legislature of acting “undemocratically” by invoking a power whose entire purpose is to ensure democratic accountability?
She provides some historical context about prior use of Sec. 33. Why does that context not include the fact that most democratically elected provincial governments (including Alberta under Premier Lougheed, and Saskatchewan under NDP Premier Blakeney) agreed to adopt the Charter *only if* it included the Notwithstanding Clause to allow democratically elected Legislatures to ensure a democratic check and balance against the abuse of undemocratic, unaccountable judicial power?
Why does she not mention that for the first 33 years of the Charter era, the Canadian Courts ruled that there was no constitutionally protected right to strike?
Why doesn’t she quote an expert pointing out that Allan Blakeney defended the Saskatchewan Legislature’s 1986 use of Sec. 33 to end a strike as “a legitimate use of the Clause?” Or refer to Peter Lougheed’s 1987 commitment to use Sec. 33 if the courts invented a right to strike?
Many thoughtful criticisms can be levelled against Section 33. Being undemocratic is not one of them.
So why do we see so much agitprop like this masquerading as news from so many legacy media outlets?
IMO, there are two possible answers:
1) They are blind to their own biases; and / or
2) People like @AngeMAmato believe that they have a moral imperative to be “progressive journalists” which trumps the boringly old fashioned professional imperative to be objective and balanced.
Whatever the reason, “journalists” like this have no one to blame but themselves for growing distrust of legacy media, and the consequent emergence of non traditional media platforms.
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