Viability of a provincial police force in Alberta a fiction
By Lethbridge Herald on September 3, 2022.
Editor:
Those candidates running for the UCP leadership that have the doomsday dream of Alberta becoming an autonomous province and introducing a new police force are having a fictional dream that can never become a reality in the foreseeable future of Canada. The cost would be a humongously expensive adventure with a cost in the billions.
The laws of the land cannot be ignored nor the voice of the Alberta people. Surveys have already been conducted when it first came out of the mouths of those in power and were totally – 85 per cent – against such an adventure.
The rural areas have also been heard loud and clear that they are more than happy with the status quo of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police service.
Had the provincial police force been established in the 1920s and been maintained, then it might have been viable. To attempt to install that system now, the cost is is not an effective plan. The Alberta provincial government would lose big dollars from the federal government who support the RCMP in each province for policing. That cost would have to be another taxpayer responsibility.
Every item from pencils to equipment to manpower would be a huge undertaking beyond any expertise we have now or in the future in our provincial government. The training that would have to be undertaken to recruit and train individuals takes time and again tremendous expense to achieve. This would almost be the same as rating a military unit. Impossible!
Everyone has dreams, however when they are as ridiculous as this undertaking they keep to themselves, rather than show a lack of intelligence and rational thinking.
For the sake of the people of Alberta, especially the taxpayers who would be on the hook forever including future children and grandchildren who have to look forward to this huge provincial debt, rethink, re-plan and rationalize the government thoughts.
Gerald Alkerton
Lethbridge
11-10
This is no different than Ralph Klein privatizing our power and natural gas and dumping the total cost onto the backs of the property owners. After slashing corporate taxes by $9.4 billion for the rich Kenney is trying to find ways to replace it by forcing Albertans into a lot more privatization just like Klein.