Policing grads ready for new positions

By Lethbridge Herald on June 21, 2025.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Police Service, Taber Police Service and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) Railroad Police Service celebrated 10 graduates from the Police Cadet Training program at the Lethbridge Polytechnic Friday afternoon. 

Of the newest graduates, eight are joining the Lethbridge Police Service, one is joining the Taber Police Service, and the other one is joining the CPKC Police Service. 

The cadets completed the polytechnic’s 23-week program, which is designed to meet industry demand and ensure newly hired officers are well trained in both hard skills, such as firearms use, and soft skills, including interpersonal communication, ethical accountability and teamwork.

Catherine Rigaux, chair for the School of Public Safety in the Centre for Justice and Human Services at Lethbridge Polytechnic, and an instructor at the Police Cadet Training program, told media that the program is one of the only accredited police training programs available. 

“We are accredited through the Ministry of Advanced Education and the Solicitor General,” she pointed out. “It’s a way of professionalizing the training and cadets receive an intensive training, and they come out not only as sworn police officers, but also with a post-secondary credential.”

She shared that the demand for police officers across southern Alberta is very high at the moment. Every police agency is currently looking to recruit officers and there is always a demand. 

“As members come up for retirement, succession planning agencies are always looking to make sure they have the requisite strength in their agency to effectively police and be operationally ready for what the community needs,” said Rigaux. 

One of the graduates joining LPS is Kyle Bourassa, who said he has only good things to say about his cadet class. 

“We’re all family at this point. We are each other’s biggest support. We have been here for each other almost since day one, it was like we knew each other as soon as we met.”

The 23-week program was intense, he added, but it flew by because they were having so much fun. 

“The experience was fantastic, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Bourassa said he wanted to become a police officer since childhood, and his family had a friend who was an RCMP officer at the time.

“When I was a kid, I looked up to him; he was a big influence in my life and ever since then I wanted to become a police officer.”

Even though he was born and raised in Calgary, when Bourassa saw the LPS recruiting videos, he knew Lethbridge Police was the place for him. 

George Wall, the graduate joining the CPKC Police Service, said after putting so much work into the program, it was very exciting to be graduating. 

“We built a strong connection with all of us in the class, all ten of us,” he said. “You can see the camaraderie in the classroom, and we are very excited to be done with this stage of our training and go to the next stage.”

Wall, who has a background in corrections, said he felt it was time for a change, so he decided to become a police officer.