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Lethbridge County not in favour of Alberta scrapping the RCMP

LETHBRIDGE COUNTY, AB – It appears Lethbridge County is not overly keen on Alberta switching to a provincial police force one day.

The Alberta government has been investigating the possibility of getting rid of the RCMP for rural policing, replacing the mounties with a province-based service instead.

Reeve Tory Campbell says it’s Lethbridge County’s position that Alberta communities have not been properly consulted on this.

“Lethbridge County Council and a majority of other rural municipalities do not support this proposed transition to an Alberta Provincial Police Service. We have regularly lobbied our MLAs and provincial ministers, but to this point, our concerns seem to have fallen on deaf ears,” said Campbell in an emailed statement.

Reeve Campbell points to a number of concerns mainly pertaining to costing, levels of service, and municipal input.

Lethbridge County provided some numbers to illustrate the financial pressures it has been under since the province began shifting the cost of policing to municipalities, resulting in a $352,000.00 cost to Lethbridge County to cover RCMP policing in Lethbridge County. This cost rose to $469,000.00 in 2022, with estimated costs to Lethbridge County of $704,000.00 in 2023 and 2024.

Campbell says at a time when provincial downloading continues to impact municipal finances, Lethbridge County and a majority of rural municipalities continue to stress the dire consequences of further downloading from the Province of Alberta.

“What what we can see is that costing hasn’t been thouroughly explored,” says Campbell.

Patrick Siedlecki
Patrick Siedlecki
Pat has been a mainstay in the CJOC News department from the time the station launched in 2007. He's been in the position of News Director since then and has been anchoring daily news casts as well as reporting and working behind the scenes. Community is important to him and keeping CJOC listeners and readers informed about what's happening across southern Alberta and beyond. Pat has been in radio broadcasting for the past 24 years, starting in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island in 1997 and then moving up island to Nanaimo for another few years before heading to Lethbridge in 2007. Pat grew up in the small Saskatchewan farming town of Foam Lake. After high school, he went to Western Academy Broadcasting College (WABC) in Saskatoon prior to moving to the island. Pat also spent several years broadcasting hockey in the BCHL as well as seven years as the radio voice of the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the WHL. Pat has been working at Cornerstone Funeral Home in Lethbridge as a Certified Life Celebrant and Funeral Assistant since 2016. News and sports have always been Pat's passion from the time he was a teenager and he's always been grateful to have had the opportunity to make that part of what's been a fun and long radio career!
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