Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said anyone who has been watching her since she was elected knows she wants to elevate the Alberta Sheriffs. “Mike Ellis when we put him in as the public safety and emergency services minister looked at their training and said my goodness, they’re only a few weeks short of getting the training they need to be able to be categorized as police,” said Smith in a Saturday interview on Your Province. Your Premier. on Corus Radio. “And that’s important because if you’re categorized as police, now you can move seamlessly between different agencies.” Corus Radio host Wayne Nelson started off by saying the Public Safety Statutes Amendment Act (PSSAA) would see the Alberta Sheriffs take on more responsibilities. “The Sheriffs’ Union says it wasn’t consulted,” said Nelson. “The National Police Federation is worried we’re laying the groundwork for a new independent police agency.” Nelson asked why there were no consultations on the PSSAA or indications it was being worked on. If people can move seamlessly between police agencies, Smith said they can start off at the Alberta Sheriffs and join another one soon after. By bringing forward the PSSAA, Smith said it is acting in the Alberta Sheriffs’ best interests. She set up fentanyl, surveillance, community safety, and fugitive apprehension teams for it. For them to do these services and not be acknowledged as police, she said it “seems like we’re diminishing the important role they play.” She said she met an Alberta Sheriff who did traffic patrol in Bonnyville during the United Conservative Party leadership race. In traffic control, he said he caught plenty of bad guys, as they often are bad drivers. What bothered him was if there was a call to an RCMP detachment in rural Alberta because a person was stealing equipment. He would have to wait until the criminal stole the equipment and drove past him on the highway to stop him, as he is not a police officer. She said that “is ridiculous, because people want the person to respond who is the closest to the call so we can stop the guy in the action.” She acknowledged every change she has made in the last one-and-a-half years to the Alberta Sheriffs has been transparent. When agencies become police, they are governed a different way. Smith concluded by saying police cannot be governed by politicians. This is because they have to be governed by an independent police commission. “Because when something goes wrong, they have to be held to account, and you don’t want politicians to be involved in that process,” she said. The Alberta government brought forward a bill to enable the creation of an independent police agency on Wednesday. READ MORE: UPDATED: Alberta government introduces bill about independent police agency, ankle bracelets“These changes are part of a broader paradigm shift that reimagines police as an extension of the community rather than as an arm of the state,” said Ellis. “Having a new police agency perform these functions under the legal framework of policing legislation will ensure they’re carried out with the transparency, accountability and independence which Albertans should expect from law enforcement.”
