Who Does What
There are a number of different law enforcement agencies/officers within the province of Alberta, not just the RCMP. You may have seen them on the roads and highways and wonder who they were and what they do. Below I will give a brief overview of each of them. A lot of the explanations below come from the response given by Assistant Deputy Minister ( Justice) K. Goddard to the questions asked by the Okotoks Rural Crime Watch Association.
The RCMP provides province-wide rural policing services in Alberta via 118 separate detachments. (There are seven non-RCMP municipal police forces in Alberta including the Calgary and Edmonton police forces). Outside of the cities, the RCMP can be considered the main Alberta force. The RCMP and the larger municipality police forces are subject to the Alberta Police Act.
Local RCMP detachments within the circulation of this newspaper include Diamond Valley, Okotoks, High River and Cochrane. These detachments try to tailor their enforcement to the needs of their jurisdictional area. These needs are often determined through surveys sent out to citizens asking them what the policing priorities should be.
The priorities of local citizens almost always come down to the same three priorities: traffic control, property crime, and more police presence (i.e. police car visibility on the roads and in the community). The most recent surveys for Diamond Valley, Okotoks and High River conducted a couple of months ago echoed these priorities.
A second tier of law enforcement falls under the Peace Officer Act. Alberta Sheriffs, Fish and Wildlife officers and community peace officers are subject to this Act.
Under the Alberta Sheriffs arm is the Sheriff Highway Patrol (SHP) which functions within the Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Services. At full complement there are nine managers, 33 sergeants, and 217 traffic sheriffs. The vision of the SHP is to optimize and promote traffic safety in Alberta for both commercial and public transportation.
There are other non-traffic safety sheriff divisions including the Fugitive Apprehension Sheriff Support Team which is tasked with finding and arresting dangerous fugitives in Alberta, and the Sheriff Investigative Support Unit which assists police of various jurisdictions with surveillance-related investigative needs focusing on individuals committing crime throughout Alberta.
Fish and Wildlife officers are members of the Alberta Sheriffs Branch and have specific provincial and federal appointments charging them with the investigation and enforcement of fisheries and wildlife laws. Fish and Wildlife officers are appointed as fishery officers under the Fisheries (Alberta) Act. In addition, they are Alberta peace officers appointed for all provincial and federal legislation to enable effective delivery of conservation law enforcement programs, mutual enforcement aid, and Rural Alberta Provincial Integrated Defence (RAPID) response to the provincial police (i.e. RCMP) during rural crime emergencies.
Sheriffs and Fish and Wildlife officers receive 18-22 months’ training and have the authority to carry tools and weapons commensurate with their training, roles and responsibilities in the conduct of their duties.
There are also Municipal bylaw officers who are designated by their respective councils under the Municipal Government Act. These officers are restricted to conducting bylaw enforcement only and receive training directly from the municipality that employs them.
The various law enforcement arms do their best to coordinate activities and you may see any or all of them at a Check Stop for example. I can attest to this as years ago my father-in-law and I were coming back from the farm near the Saskatchewan border after a weekend of making sausage. We hit a Check Stop at the junction of two highways near Beisker and the officer who checked us was a Fish and Wildlife officer (it was also the last day of hunting season).
The car was filled with the smell of smoked sausage, and we had boxes of it. He asked us if we’d been hunting. We replied no, we’ve been making sausage. He asked deer? No pork. He laughed and waived us on. I hope he wasn’t hungry as it smelled pretty good.
You could also receive a speeding ticket from any one of these officers and the ticket would look the same.
Dave Schroeder – HCRCWA Board Member
