Province rejects Calgary police funding request
Calgary's mayor and police chief went into a meeting Thursday with Alberta's premier seeking money to help the city fight gang violence, but left empty-handed after 90 minutes.
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach rejected the request for $25 million from Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier to hire 200 more police officers for the city.
Instead, Stelmach reiterated the provincial government's budget promise of funding 300 new officers for Alberta over the next three years, which includes 100 for the city of Calgary.
"The Safe Communities Task Force, the police chiefs were all at the table, including the RCMP [and they] said, 'You know what? Give us 300 new additional police officers over the next three years. That should meet the demand,'" said Stelmach.
To soften the rejection, Justice Minister Alison Redford promised to look at whether more officers are needed.
"We've already announced 100, so the answer was not 'no.' The answer was that if the mayor was looking for 200 officers, we had made a commitment for 100 officers, and we'll continue to discuss."
During the meeting, six senior officers made a 45-minute presentation to the premier outlining the gang and drug-related violence this summer, as five men have been shot to death in public in the last three months.
"I hope they will look outside their normal budget process and recognize the crisis that this community's in as it relates to gang and gang violence," said a disappointed Bronconnier on Thursday.
The mayor, who will make a matching $25-million request to city council on Sept. 9, said the province can easily find the money when it's projecting an $8.5 billion surplus this year.
"The premier hasn't stepped up to the table and it actually to me sounds like the Conservatives are being soft on crime here," said Calgary Liberal MLA Kent Hehr, who is working to pass legislation that would allow police to seize vehicles carrying illegal guns.
Gang arrests announced day earlier
The meeting with the premier came one day after Calgary police announced a major operation that netted 14 arrests and the seizure of illegal drugs and weapons.
Calgary police Chief Rick Hanson said the timing of news of the gang sweep was a coincidence.
"The fact that there was a confluence of those two things is just something that happened," he said. "It would have been very improper of me to step in and say to the operational folks, 'Hey, hold off the announcement because people may view this as political.'"
Hanson said without additional officers, the force will need to look at taking resources from other departments such as domestic violence or cybercrime.
Criminologist Doug King said it is a risky tactic if the police are playing politics.
"You run the risk, if you're a police agency, of being so overtly political in terms of trying to put pressure on an elected official to do something, put that kind of pressure on them, that it can backfire."