Haultain Research   Marco Navarro-Génie

The story of an RCMP sergeant decrying traditional values as a gateway for extremism should be more than troubling. It should be fuel for every Albertan committed to establishing a provincial police force that reflects who we are, not what Ottawa wishes us to become.

Alberta has lately endured serious RCMP overreach. We remember the door-kicking in Fort McMurray, and the same abusive aggression repeated during the 2013 floods in High River. And few will forget the politically fabricated claims made against the Coutts Four. These weren’t isolated incidents. They are expressions of an institutional culture unmoored from Alberta’s interests, unaccountable to its people, and ultimately indifferent to the liberties Albertans value.

The RCMP was not always this way. It was once a respected force rooted in Western traditions, created to keep peace and order on a rugged frontier—an institution with a sense of duty to the West it served. But that era has long passed. The RCMP today is a different creature—centralized, politicized, and openly hostile to the values it was once meant to protect.

This is why the push for an Alberta provincial police force must not be dismissed as symbolism or empty political gesture.

Let us be clear: Alberta doesn’t need anyone’s permission to establish its police force. Section 92 of the Constitution Act, 1867 grants Alberta the authority to create its police force. Quebec and Ontario have done so. Alberta is equally entitled, despite the centralizing delusions that drift through Ottawa and a few bon pensants among the New Democratic opposition.

Still, entitlement alone is not enough. Execution matters.

There is a quiet triumphalism in some circles—a belief that simply calling a force “Alberta Provincial Police” will make it better. But geography never guarantees virtue. Unless Albertans are intentional, Alberta risks reproducing the same policing culture that has failed us, only with new decals and a provincial seal.

The story of Jeremia and Dominic Leussink five years ago illustrates the danger. The two brothers, farmers near Didsbury, were trying to do their work. After a 16-hour shift, Jeremia, then 18, was driving a tractor down Highway 2A. He entered a police checkstop through a ditch, which is standard practice on rural roads. Alberta Sheriffs didn’t use discretion. They used force. Jeremia was dragged from the tractor, slammed into the gravel, and punched in the neck and face. Dominic, who arrived soon after, was detained when he attempted to prevent damage to the machinery. Charges were laid and then quietly dropped, but not before the boys endured physical harm and a humiliating brush with the law.

This wasn’t the RCMP. This was a provincial outfit. And it reminds us that the problem isn’t just federal control—the culture and traditions of a police force matter.

This brings us to a deeper question: What kind of police culture should Alberta build?

Alberta is not a generic Canadian province. As its motto declares, we are strong and free. Our strength lies in our culture. We prize private enterprise and property not as a luxury but as the bedrock of freedom. We value liberty—not only the freedom to speak, worship, associate, and dissent, but the freedom from the state when it seeks to impose itself where it doesn’t belong. These convictions are not ornamental. They are essential to the Alberta way of life.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, notably, does not even mention property rights. That tells you everything about the central Canadian view of liberty. And it explains why so many of our freedoms—property, expression, conscience—are eroding under the bureaucratic thumb of progressive ideology that dominates Laurentia.

This isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s operational.

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The remarks by RCMP Staff Sergeant Camille Habel about “traditional values” being a path to extremism are not fringe views. They reflect a new cultural orthodoxy now embedded in federal institutions. And they make it more urgent that Alberta create its force, one grounded in law and in culture. That means training Alberta’s officers in accordance with Alberta’s distinct values.

To get there, we must be deliberate.

We should begin by identifying the core virtues that must define an Alberta police force. First, it must be culturally rooted. Officers should not merely patrol Alberta, but belong to it, understanding the values, customs, and expectations of the people they serve. Second, it must train law enforcement personnel to make independent judgments: those capable of thinking clearly under pressure, guided not by rigid directives but by the principles of justice. Third, it must embody moral clarity—a refusal to chase ideological bogeymen while real crimes fester. Fourth, it must be directly accountable, not to Ottawa ideals, not to abstract policy frameworks, but to Alberta communities and Alberta law. And finally, and most critically, it must protect Alberta’s distinct culture, which includes our deep concern for individual freedom, strong property rights, and a form of government that respects and serves its citizens as individuals.

But virtues alone won’t build a force. Institutions do that.

Founding a new institution requires the founding of new training ways. An Alberta Provincial Police would need a new, purpose-built academy curriculum, distinct in philosophy, to ensure a shift in policing culture, not just in uniforms and reporting lines. This new academy must include training in Alberta history, culture (and place Alberta law in its context), not as window dressing, but as the foundational context for service. The Ministry of Public Safety must understand that setting the DNA of a new force is not optional—it is paramount. No amount of administrative rebranding will protect Albertans if the force is trained in the same ideological water that floods federal institutions.

These are not theoretical ideals. They are the qualities that allow a free people to remain free. And if Alberta is to continue building something worthy, we might look—not uncritically, but carefully—at the best of what police forces beyond Ottawa’s offer.

Take the Texas Rangers, for example. While their early record contains severe stains, the Rangers in their more refined tradition offer a model of law enforcement that is local, deeply serious about justice, and wary of distant interference. They have long seen themselves not as agents of Washington, but as guardians of the Texan way of life. That distinction matters. It makes them accountable to the people they served, rather than to federal fashions or shifting ideological norms in Washington.

The old Ranger saying “One riot, one Ranger” was not a boast but an expectation. It meant that each officer was expected to act with competence, courage, and restraint. No sprawling command structure. No ten layers of liability-avoidance. Just principled responsibility, exercised by someone embedded in the land she served.

And that made all the difference.

What made the Rangers distinct was not their tactics, but their cultural placement. They thought like Texans because they were Texans. They acted with authority because their authority came from below, not above. They didn’t simply enforce laws; they protected a way of life.

That is the kind of institutional culture Alberta must create, one that sees policing as a defence of community, liberty, and order, not as an arm of political engineering designed elsewhere, even in Edmonton. Not a bureaucracy in new colours, but a corps of officers sworn to Alberta first.

If done well, an Alberta Provincial Police will be a shield against federal overreach, Laurentian cultural hostility, and the creeping conformity of federal institutions. If done poorly, it will be a clone of the RCMP with all its woke condescension toward Western rurals and independent thinkers.

Alberta cannot afford to get this wrong.

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