Alberta
Province providing Indigenous communities and municipalities support to study future of policing
Committing to community policing
Alberta’s government will ensure Indigenous communities and municipalities have the support they need to study what kind of police service best meets their local needs.
Every Albertan should feel safe and secure in their communities and every community should be able to choose a policing model that meets their needs. Alberta’s government is investing in increased community safety by providing $6 million over two years for Indigenous and Municipal Police Transition Study Grants. These grants would provide Indigenous communities and municipalities with up to $30,000 each toward an independent study to determine if a local, self-administered police service or a regional policing model would be a better fit for their citizens.
“No one knows a community’s needs better than the people who live there. This funding will empower municipalities to explore different policing models that will improve public safety and address their community’s unique needs.”
The Indigenous and Municipal Police Transition Study Grants were created to assist communities interested in exploring different policing models. The grants will help communities cover the cost of conducting necessary research into local public safety needs, gaps, capital requirements and transition considerations.
To date, Public Safety and Emergency Services has received grant applications from 13 communities that are interested in a different policing model to meet their needs. The department is reviewing these applications and working with these and other communities that have expressed interest in applying.
“This funding provides municipalities with an excellent opportunity to study how best to meet their communities’ local and regional policing needs.”
Alberta’s government supports a community’s choice to determine what is best for its citizens, and assisting with the study and development of alternate policing models will help address the government’s public safety concerns. Every community has distinct needs, and each is in the best position to determine which policing model is best for them.
Budget 2023 secures Alberta’s future by transforming the health-care system to meet people’s needs, supporting Albertans with the high cost of living, keeping our communities safe and driving the economy with more jobs, quality education and continued diversification.
Quick facts
- Under Alberta’s Police Act, towns and cities with populations greater than 5,000 are responsible for their own policing.
- The Police Act gives municipalities the option of having their own police service, forming a regional policing arrangement or contracting for provincial policing services (i.e., the RCMP under Alberta’s provincial police service agreement).
- Under an agreement reached in September 2022, the Siksika Nation will get its own self-administered police service. Siksika developed a business case in 2021 with assistance from a $30,000 provincial government grant.
- Grande Prairie city council voted in March to create a municipal police service that will take over local policing from the RCMP.
- Over the next two years, Alberta will provide Grande Prairie with a $9.7-million grant to establish a local police service.
From Resource Now
Alberta renews call for West Coast oil pipeline amid shifting federal, geopolitical dynamics.
Just six months ago, talk of resurrecting some version of the Northern Gateway pipeline would have been unthinkable. But with the election of Donald Trump in the U.S. and Mark Carney in Canada, it’s now thinkable.
In fact, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith seems to be making Northern Gateway 2.0 a top priority and a condition for Alberta staying within the Canadian confederation and supporting Mark Carney’s vision of making Canada an Energy superpower. Thanks to Donald Trump threatening Canadian sovereignty and its economy, there has been a noticeable zeitgeist shift in Canada. There is growing support for the idea of leveraging Canada’s natural resources and diversifying export markets to make it less vulnerable to an unpredictable southern neighbour.
“I think the world has changed dramatically since Donald Trump got elected in November,” Smith said at a keynote address Wednesday at the Global Energy Show Canada in Calgary. “I think that’s changed the national conversation.” Smith said she has been encouraged by the tack Carney has taken since being elected Prime Minister, and hopes to see real action from Ottawa in the coming months to address what Smith said is serious encumbrances to Alberta’s oil sector, including Bill C-69, an oil and gas emissions cap and a West Coast tanker oil ban. “I’m going to give him some time to work with us and I’m going to be optimistic,” Smith said. Removing the West Coast moratorium on oil tankers would be the first step needed to building a new oil pipeline line from Alberta to Prince Rupert. “We cannot build a pipeline to the west coast if there is a tanker ban,” Smith said. The next step would be getting First Nations on board. “Indigenous peoples have been shut out of the energy economy for generations, and we are now putting them at the heart of it,” Smith said.
Alberta currently produces about 4.3 million barrels of oil per day. Had the Northern Gateway, Keystone XL and Energy East pipelines been built, Alberta could now be producing and exporting an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. The original Northern Gateway Pipeline — killed outright by the Justin Trudeau government — would have terminated in Kitimat. Smith is now talking about a pipeline that would terminate in Prince Rupert. This may obviate some of the concerns that Kitimat posed with oil tankers negotiating Douglas Channel, and their potential impacts on the marine environment.
One of the biggest hurdles to a pipeline to Prince Rupert may be B.C. Premier David Eby. The B.C. NDP government has a history of opposing oil pipelines with tooth and nail. Asked in a fireside chat by Peter Mansbridge how she would get around the B.C. problem, Smith confidently said: “I’ll convince David Eby.”
“I’m sensitive to the issues that were raised before,” she added. One of those concerns was emissions. But the Alberta government and oil industry has struck a grand bargain with Ottawa: pipelines for emissions abatement through carbon capture and storage.
The industry and government propose multi-billion investments in CCUS. The Pathways Alliance project alone represents an investment of $10 to $20 billion. Smith noted that there is no economic value in pumping CO2 underground. It only becomes economically viable if the tradeoff is greater production and export capacity for Alberta oil. “If you couple it with a million-barrel-per-day pipeline, well that allows you $20 billion worth of revenue year after year,” she said. “All of a sudden a $20 billion cost to have to decarbonize, it looks a lot more attractive when you have a new source of revenue.” When asked about the Prince Rupert pipeline proposal, Eby has responded that there is currently no proponent, and that it is therefore a bridge to cross when there is actually a proposal. “I think what I’ve heard Premier Eby say is that there is no project and no proponent,” Smith said. “Well, that’s my job. There will be soon. “We’re working very hard on being able to get industry players to realize this time may be different.” “We’re working on getting a proponent and route.”
At a number of sessions during the conference, Mansbridge has repeatedly asked speakers about the Alberta secession movement, and whether it might scare off investment capital. Alberta has been using the threat of secession as a threat if Ottawa does not address some of the province’s long-standing grievances. Smith said she hopes Carney takes it seriously. “I hope the prime minister doesn’t want to test it,” Smith said during a scrum with reporters. “I take it seriously. I have never seen separatist sentiment be as high as it is now. “I’ve also seen it dissipate when Ottawa addresses the concerns Alberta has.” She added that, if Carney wants a true nation-building project to fast-track, she can’t think of a better one than a new West Coast pipeline. “I can’t imagine that there will be another project on the national list that will generate as much revenue, as much GDP, as many high paying jobs as a bitumen pipeline to the coast.”
Alberta
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith Discusses Moving Energy Forward at the Global Energy Show in Calgary
From Energy Now
At the energy conference in Calgary, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pressed the case for building infrastructure to move provincial products to international markets, via a transportation and energy corridor to British Columbia.
“The anchor tenant for this corridor must be a 42-inch pipeline, moving one million incremental barrels of oil to those global markets. And we can’t stop there,” she told the audience.
The premier reiterated her support for new pipelines north to Grays Bay in Nunavut, east to Churchill, Man., and potentially a new version of Energy East.
The discussion comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney and his government are assembling a list of major projects of national interest to fast-track for approval.
Carney has also pledged to establish a major project review office that would issue decisions within two years, instead of five.
New RCMP program steering opioid addicted towards treatment and recovery
LA Mayor Karen Bass Makes New Demands Of Trump At Monday Night Press Conference
Natural gas pipeline ownership spreads across 36 First Nations in B.C.
We need an immigration policy that will serve all Canadians
RFK Jr. purges CDC vaccine panel, citing decades of ‘skewed science’
Letter Shows Biden Administration Privately Warned B.C. on Fentanyl Threat Years Before Patel’s Public Bombshells
