Alberta
ASIRT investigations concluded on fatal officer-involved shooting involving the RCMP.
Incident investigation report from the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT)
Introduction
On December 22, 2022, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) was directed pursuant to s. 46.1 of the Police Act to investigate a then non-fatal Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer-involved shooting. The shooting of the affected person (AP) was reported to have happened during an interaction with him, as a result of him being a suspect in a complaint of a man with a gun.
While AP initially survived, he died of complications from the shooting the following day.
ASIRT’s Investigation
ASIRT’s investigation was comprehensive and thorough, conducted using current investigative protocols and principles relating to Major Case Management. Information from civilian witnesses, the subject and a witness officers, and importantly video recordings provided sufficient information to determine whether the force used by the subject officer during this incident was reasonable.
Circumstances Surrounding the Officer-Involved Shooting
On December 01, 2022, Maskwacis RCMP received a call reporting that a male [AP] had been drinking and left the caller’s house with a gun. AP was shooting the gun in the country (believed to be the area around the residence). Two RCMP officers responded.
Witness officer (WO) located AP walking on the road with a rifle. AP walked toward WO’s marked police vehicle with the rifle pointed at the vehicle/WO, while WO was seated in the driver’s seat. WO then exited his vehicle with his carbine rifle and moved to the rear of his vehicle while AP kept the rifle pointed at the police vehicle. The subject officer (SO) arrived on scene, but came from the opposite direction. AP turned around and walked toward SO with the barrel of the rifle pointed upwards. SO exited his police vehicle with his service pistol drawn and walked toward AP while he
repeatedly provided verbal direction to AP to drop the firearm. AP and SO were walking toward each other; at that time AP still had the barrel of the rifle pointed upward. As SO and AP got within approximately five meters of each other, AP lowered the barrel of the rifle and pointed it directly at SO. SO fired multiple rounds and struck AP with four rounds causing AP to stumble, drop the rifle and fall to the ground. AP initially survived the shooting and was transported to an Edmonton hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. The following day, AP succumbed to his injuries.
Analysis
The subject officer was lawfully placed and acting in the execution of his duties in dealing with AP as a person who was the subject of a complaint about him being in possession of a firearm and shooting it off.
The Use of Force
Under s. 25 of the Criminal Code, police officers are permitted to use as much force as is necessary for the execution of their duties. Where this force is intended or is likely to cause death or grievous bodily harm, the officer must believe on reasonable grounds that the force is necessary for the self-preservation of the officer or preservation of anyone under that officer’s protection.
A police officer’s use of force is not to be assessed on a standard of perfection nor using the benefit of hindsight.
With the benefit of hindsight, time for detached reflection and knowledge of the ultimate outcome, it is easy to speculate about how things could have been done differently. That is not the standard, however, against which an officer’s conduct is measured. The question is, applying principles of proportionality, necessity, and reasonableness, whether the force used falls into a range of possible reasonable responses.
Proportionate Response
Proportionality requires balancing a use of force with the action to which it responds. Here, the subject officers were faced with an individual that was armed with a gun and pointing it in their direction. As such, the response by the subject officers in using their respective firearms to shoot AP was proportionate to the threat of death or grievous bodily harm that he reasonably posed to both of them.
Reasonably Necessary
As set out previously in this report, AP presented as a lethal threat to both SO and WO given his actions in pointing his rifle at them. While WO did not shoot during this incident that does not impact the analysis of SO’s actions. Under the circumstances as then faced by SO, no other use of force options were reasonably available for attempted use. The use by SO of his firearm to incapacitate this lethal threat was reasonably necessary. Given the above, the defence available to SO under s. 25 of the Criminal Code would apply.
Conclusion
Under s. 25 of the Criminal Code a police officer is justified in doing what he or she is authorized to do and to use as much force as is reasonably necessary where he or she has reasonable grounds to do so. Force intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm is justified if the officer believes, on reasonable grounds, that the force was necessary to prevent the death or grievous bodily harm of the officer and/or any other person. The analysis under s.34 of the Criminal Code leads to a similar finding that subject officer’s actions were lawfully permitted.
After a thorough, independent and objective investigation into the conduct of the subject officers, it is my opinion that they were lawfully placed and acting properly in the execution of their duties. There is no evidence to support any belief that any officer engaged in any unlawful or unreasonable conduct that would give rise to an offence. The force used was proportionate, necessary and reasonable in all the circumstances.
Below are my updated charts through April 2025 along with the cumulative data starting in October 2024. As you can see, central and southern Alberta are trending quite dry, while the north appears to be faring much better. However, even there, the devil is in the details. For instance, in Grande Prairie the overall precipitation level appears to be “normal”, yet in April it was bone dry and talking with someone who was recently there, they described it as a dust bowl. In short, some rainfall would be helpful. These next 3 months are fairly critical.
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From the Fraser Institute
After the Smith government recently announced its shift to a new approach for funding hospitals, known as “activity-based funding” (ABF), defenders of the status quo in Alberta were quick to argue ABF will not improve health care in the province. Their claims are simply incorrect. In reality, based on the experiences of other better-performing universal health-care systems, ABF will help reduce wait times for Alberta patients and provide better value-for-money for taxpayers.
First, it’s important to understand Alberta is not breaking new ground with this approach. Other developed countries shifted to the ABF model starting in the early 1990s.
Indeed, after years of paying their hospitals a lump-sum annual budget for surgical care (like Alberta currently), other countries with universal health care recognized this form of payment encouraged hospitals to deliver fewer services by turning each patient into a cost to be minimized. The shift to ABF, which compensates hospitals for the actual services they provide, flips the script—hospitals in these countries now see patients as a source of revenue.
In fact, in many universal health-care countries, these reforms began so long ago that some are now on their second or even third generation of ABF, incorporating further innovations to encourage an even greater focus on quality.
For example, in Sweden in the early 1990s, counties that embraced ABF enjoyed a potential cost savings of 13 per cent over non-reforming counties that stuck with budgets. In Stockholm, one study measured an 11 per cent increase in hospital activity overall alongside a 1 per cent decrease in costs following the introduction of ABF. Moreover, according to the study, ABF did not reduce access for older patients or patients with more complex conditions. In England, the shift to ABF in the early to mid-2000s helped increase hospital activity and reduce the cost of care per patient, also without negatively affecting quality of care.
Multi-national studies on the shift to ABF have repeatedly shown increases in the volume of care provided, reduced costs per admission, and (perhaps most importantly for Albertans) shorter wait times. Studies have also shown ABF may lead to improved quality and access to advanced medical technology for patients.
Clearly, the naysayers who claim that ABF is some sort of new or untested reform, or that Albertans are heading down an unknown path with unmanageable and unexpected risks, are at the very least uninformed.
And what of those theoretical drawbacks?
Some critics claim that ABF may encourage faster discharges of patients to reduce costs. But they fail to note this theoretical drawback also exists under the current system where discharging higher-cost patients earlier can reduce the drain on hospital budgets. And crucially, other countries have implemented policies to prevent these types of theoretical drawbacks under ABF, which can inform Alberta’s approach from the start.
Critics also argue that competition between private clinics, or even between clinics and hospitals, is somehow a bad thing. But all of the developed world’s top performing universal health-care systems, with the best outcomes and shortest wait times, include a blend of both public and private care. No one has done it with the naysayers’ fixation on government provision.
And finally, some critics claim that, under ABF, private clinics will simply focus on less-complex procedures for less-complex patients to achieve greater profit, leaving public hospitals to perform more complex and thus costly surgeries. But in fact, private clinics alleviate pressure on the public system, allowing hospitals to dedicate their sophisticated resources to complex cases. To be sure, the government must ensure that complex procedures—no matter where they are performed—must always receive appropriate levels of funding and similarly that less-complex procedures are also appropriately funded. But again, the vast and lengthy experience with ABF in other universal health-care countries can help inform Alberta’s approach, which could then serve as an example for other provinces.
Alberta’s health-care system simply does not deliver for patients, with its painfully long wait times and poor access to physicians and services—despite its massive price tag. With its planned shift to activity-based funding, the province has embarked on a path to better health care, despite any false claims from the naysayers. Now it’s crucial for the Smith government to learn from the experiences of others and get this critical reform right.
Nadeem Esmail
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
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