First let me wish all Residents a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, I hope the next year brings you everything you are hoping for. On my last article I left off at a point of explaining our Policing, I hope I covered it ok, we have 4 levels of Policing; County Bylaw and Peace Officers, Provincial Sheriffs and RCMP. This month I will cover the level of Policing and how it is changing, specifically the RCMP.
The RCMP is Canada’s National Police force, the Province contracts them to provide Policing throughout the Province to administer and enforce the Criminal Code, Rocky View County does not have the authority to do that, ByLaw and Peace Officers are unarmed and untrained for that purpose. There are 4 Districts for the RCMP, we are in the Southern Alberta District, there are 112 detachments, 37 are in our District and they have 587 Regular Members. Strathmore is the Detachment that looks after our area, their phone number in the daytime office hours is 403-934-3968, the number that is monitored all the time is 403-934-3535 and 911 service is available for all emergencies.
The Police Act is the legislation that applies for Policing in Alberta, if you want to read it just search “Police Act Alberta” and you can review it at your leisure. There is one concept in particular that is going to apply to us in the near future and that is the magic number of 5,000 and how it affects the County we live in. The basics of it are this, a few years after a census has determined that a population has reached 5,000 and will stay above that level, the Municipality or County has to start providing its own Police Service, it applies to a Hamlet as if it were a Town.
The important part is that it doesn’t mean that any particular thing is going to happen, the main part is that the County will then have to pay for that service rather than have it provided, there is an ability to receive some relief from the Province but the solution needs to be structured by the County. Keep in mind the solution could be to keep service levels exactly as they are, the main difference is that costs go up to the County. Our enforcement services are right now looking into the various ways of providing policing services. The four that are available are; 1) Using the RCMP since they are now providing the service and can potentially continue or upgrade. 2) using the services of another Municipality like Calgary and their established Police Force. 3) Sharing services with another Municipality that also provides it’s own Policing like Chestermere or Strathmore. 4) Establishing and training our own Police force that is qualified to administer the Criminal Code. The presence of a Building for the service is simply an optional part of the larger overall plan, most Law Enforcement people are quite complete in their vehicle these days. They do need somewhere to congregate though but remember… Langdon does have a Tims.
Best of the Season to you all.
