New from me.

Alberta is exploring the idea of establishing a provincial police force. What are the motivations behind this move, how much is it going to cost, and do Albertans even want it?

#yeg #ableg

Alberta currently pays $262.4 million for its RCMP service, with the feds paying $112.4 million annually in a 70-30 split. This is the prime concern for Alberta’s small towns and cities.

“We could be saddled with some immense costs going forward without federal contributions.”
Dr. Laura Huey, a criminologist at the University of Western Ontario, estimates the cost is likely to be in the billions.

"I’m not convinced necessarily that people understand and appreciate how enormous those costs are, and that those costs are ongoing and forever.”
In the end, it all comes down to cost versus control, Dr. Huey argues. But with increased control comes the risk of politicization, an issue that concerns NDP Justice critic Irfan Sabir.

“I think the province shouldn’t be controlling directly how these police forces operate."
So why is Alberta pursuing this? Autonomy from Ottawa seems to be the largest driving factor.

Derek Fildebrandt, former MLA for Strathmore-Brooks and publisher of the Western Standard, suggests the UCP are in search of a “legacy project” to hang its hat on. #ableg
In October polling conducted on behalf of the National Police Federation (NPF), 81% saying they were satisfied with RCMP policing.

“The majority of respondents thought it wasn’t important at all and shouldn’t be a priority — it’s actually quite overwhelming."
50% of respondents said Alberta should stay the course when it comes to RCMP policing, 36% supported retaining the RCMP with significant improvements and 6% supported outright replacing the RCMP with an Alberta police service.
Paul McLauchlin, a county councillor and reeve for the central Alberta town of Ponoka, says at any given time he's 30 minutes from a police officer and the issue of rural crime is still very real, and ongoing.

https://t.co/e2hX4L2Jkj
However, he remains unconvinced that an APP — with all its added costs — is the right step.

"...all I’m hearing about is “screw Ottawa” and that makes no sense. This isn’t us versus them, or us versus Ottawa … We’re not solving anything by throwing mud at each other."
I could keep going with this thread, but I won't. It's a 2,500-word story and I can't highlight everything. Give it a read if you have time today.

https://t.co/wwQohkl739

More from Society

@danielashby @AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd I'll bite. Let's try to keep it factual. There's a reasonable basis to some aspects of this question, that it might be possible to agree on. Then there are other, more variable, elements which depend on external factors such as transport and energy policy. /1

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd First up, we know reasonably well how much energy it takes to propel a high-speed train along the HS2 route. We can translate that into effective CO2 generated by making some assumptions about how green the electricity grid is. /2

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd Secondly, we have a reasonable grasp of how much CO2 is going to be generated by building HS2 - there are standard methods of working this out, based on the amount of steel, concrete, earthmoving, machine-fuelling etc required. /3

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd Thirdly, we can estimate how much CO2 is generated by cutting down trees, and how much is captured by planting new trees. We can also estimate how much CO2 is needed to keep the railway running and generated by maintaining the track /4

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd We know how much CO2 is saved by moving goods by freight train on the lines freed up by moving the express trains on to HS2, rather than by truck. /5

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