UCP leadership candidate Brian Jean agrees that Alberta needs more police officers and says he would favor the "ramping up a provincial police force."."This one is complicated. I agree with the idea in principle, over the long run. Provided that in implementing it, we don’t end up with even fewer police," Jean told the Western Standard..Jean said right now in rural and small town Alberta there are not enough police officers.."Anything that makes that worse is a non-starter. That is why over 70 municipalities run by very conservative people have signed a letter asking us to slow down on getting rid of the RCMP," Jean said.."I would favour ramping up a provincial police force slowly over the next while and offering it up to the cities and towns that are paying for the RCMP to do local law enforcement.".Jean believes this decision would free up more RCMP to do rural policing which he claims would be a "win-win."."I think for a while we should have the RCMP and a provincial police force. There are police services that the RCMP do that would be very hard and very expensive to replace," Jean said.."And, again, we can’t do anything that would lead us to having fewer police, or lower quality policing services in Alberta.That means the RCMP stays, at least for the foreseeable future."
