Lac La Biche County councillors have been in Edmonton this week at the Rural Municipalities of Alberta Fall Convention.
Starting on Tuesday with early-conference all-day sessions on councils' roles in strategic planning and service delivery, followed by four-hour hospitality suite networking sessions, the convention featured opportunities for municipal representatives to meet with Alberta Minister of Municipal Affairs Kaycee Madu, associate Minister of Natural Gas Dale Nally, NDP opposition Finance critic Joe Ceci, and associate MInister of Red Tape Reduction Grant Hunter.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney will be speaking to RMA attendees — including Lac La Biche County councillors Friday morning.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney will be at the convention Friday for a short presentation to rural officials between 11:30 to 11:45.
Listen and See Kenney's speech to councils
POST readers can see Kenney's presentation by clicking HERE or here.
Policing
Also announced at the RMA convention was that Lac La Biche County will be one of five regions across the province to pilot a project that will look at root causes of increased rural crime. The pilot project will begin next year in Lac La Biche County, Wetaskiwin, Beiseker, Sunchild First Nation and Peace River. The Lac La Biche program will include the county and town of Athabasca and Calling Lake in its scope. Details about the pilot projects were not available, but is expected to use existing community agencies to evaluate not only crime and justice-related incidents, but also socio-economic issues in the community.
The pilot study's announcement comes just days after the provincial government annouced new plans that will see 400 of the province's Fish and Wildlife officers, Sheriffs and Commercial Vehicle Enforcement take on more responsibilities when it comes to rural crime in the area's they patrol.
The province plans to spend more than $6 million to provide enhanced training to the peace officers in those agencies to better train them to respond to emergencies and crimes in their jurisdictions. The new training may also see the commercial vehicle officers equipped with sidearms, matching their counterparts in Fish and Wildlife and the Sheriff's Department.
The enhanced policing is just one part of what is expected to be a rollout of new legislation to better protect rural residents from what politicians are calling a crisis of crime. Legislation that could see people convicted of crimes forced to compensate the victims through court-ordered property seizures or wage garnishing, is expected to be created in the fall siting of the Legislature. Other crime-related policy could include the allowance of community impact statements read by groups of residents affected by crime being read in court, and much higher penalties for people convicted of trespassing on private property.
“We are sending a strong signal to rural Albertans who have been victimized for far too long. We have listened to you. We have heard you. And we are standing with you. We want to ensure you know that we are going to do everything we can as a provincial government to help you feel safe in your communities,” said Doug Schweitzer, Alberta's Minister of Justice and Solicitor General.
Comments from Lac La Biche County council members about the pilot project and Kenney's keynote address at the convention will be included in updates of this story as they become available.
At the same time the province is injecting millions into the enhanced roles of some departments, municipal leaders across the province are still waiting to hear how the new funding formula will pan out for RCMP coverage in rural communities. Kenney and his UCP government told small municipalities this summer that the subsidized policing costs for municipalities claiming populations of under 5,000 people will see some modifications. For the hamlet of Lac La Biche, which received funding for the community's RCMP members, the affect could be anywhere from a $200,000 shortfall to more than a million dollars.
The UCP government introduced Bills 20 and 21 in the Legislature last week. The bills have upwards of 35 changes to existing legislation, including the possible change of the municipal police funding arrangements, the removal of the post-secondary tuition freeze, the increase of tobacco taxes and the scrubbing of the Alberta Lottery Fund.
