Edmonton police Chief Dale McFee reflects on 6 years in top job

Dale McFee is starting the new year with his final day as chief of the Edmonton Police Service just around the corner.

He's cutting his time with EPS short in February, stepping down for a new job as the Alberta government's top civil servant. By the time he leaves, he'll have served six years as chief, through what he deemed in his retirement announcement, "some very tumultuous times."

McFee took the top job at EPS just a year before the COVID pandemic hit Alberta. Global demands to redistribute police funding came soon after, in the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis, Minn., police officers. In Edmonton, debate about the EPS funding formula and police budget transparency followed.

McFee subsequently oversaw the response to rising calls to address public safety in downtown Edmonton and across the city's transit system, as well as a contentious policy of dismantling homeless encampments, starting in late 2023.

And the outgoing Edmonton chief was in charge through the 2023 killings of EPS officers Travis Jordan and Brett Ryan, and the 2024 shooting inside city hall.

In his final year-end interview with CBC, McFee reflects on the changes at EPS and how the "navigation of politics" has affected his term.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WATCH | How policing in Edmonton has changed according to the outgoing chief of police:

Unfinished business, challenges and success: How policing in Edmonton has changed, according to outgoing chief

4 days ago

Duration 7:27

The CBC's Madeline Smith and outgoing Edmonton police Chief Dale McFee sit down to talk about the biggest challenges EPS and the city are facing going into 2025.

You're about to leave policing after more than 30 years. When you think about yourself on your first day as an officer, in Prince Albert, Sask., what's changed about policing that would surprise that version of Dale McFee the most?

I remember the excitement of that first day. I was a special constable going out in, let's just say menial tasks at the time. But I think if you look at it, just all the changes that have been made from technology — you went from recipe cards to computers to now we're looking at AI, so some of the rapid advancements that have happened there.

I think when you look at people, the thing that hasn't changed is, really, the police are dealing with people that aren't necessarily on their best behaviour. And the role of that is obviously to protect not only yourself and fellow officers, but the community, and those things remain the same.

When you announced your retirement, you thanked the citizens of Edmonton. You said it's been an honour to serve. And then you added that when you speak about the public, you don't mean "activists on social media that spread misinformation." Why did you decide to say that as you're stepping down?

Well, I've said it before. I don't think personal agendas on social media without proven evidence and fact, trying to interfere with a policing investigation, does anybody any favours and just sets things, sometimes, in the wrong direction and actually riles the community up.

We're not talking about all the people on social media that are having discussions that are fair. It's not about being critical. It's about when you're actually going from critical to making stuff up. And that's a problem.

In the past few years there have been some moments of tension between EPS and city council, or between yourself and city council. Do you think that helped or hurt in accomplishing your goals?

I mean, I don't think it helped by any stretch of the imagination. 

I'm not going to say anything that I haven't said before — I've never seen it like this. I've worked with several different councils. I worked with several different political affiliations in government, but there's clear lines where everybody's responsible.

The province holds, obviously, the accountability for policing. They hold the policy for policing. The [Edmonton police] commission is an independent body.... That's the governance model, and city council obviously has a role in relation to finance.

It's no different than if you look at judges.... They have the independence to make decisions. The prosecutions have independence to make decisions. And policing also has the independence to make decisions, and it should be without any type of political interference.

[It] doesn't mean we don't have accountability mechanisms. I want to be very clear. There's lots of accountability mechanisms in place.

But those lanes are clear. And when those lanes get blurred and it becomes about politics over safety, and it becomes some of the things that have gone on, I don't think it's healthy.

Is there one thing that when you came into this job, you wanted to accomplish, that you feel like you didn't get there?

I look at my list, back in the day that I was hired, and I think we built a lot of community involvement. I think we've obviously stood up the way we police different in community safety and well-being. I think we've done a good job of building leadership and succession planning for the future here.

I think the blip in the road that kind of threw us maybe behind, or not where I wanted to get to exactly, was the whole defund the police movement.

I would have liked to have gone further in the crime reduction than we've had.... I think Edmontonians deserve to be [in] the safest place that we can possibly make it, and I don't think we're there yet.

The other thing that goes hand in hand with that — I don't think we've gotten, in this city, far enough with transit, to be honest with you. I mean, I think it's better. The violence is down. But there's a lot of people that use transit on a regular day-to-day basis. And if they don't feel safe to use it, I think we need to go further in transit. 

Do you think anything useful came out of discussions about police funding, the defund the police movement, and that moment in time?

I think some of the discussions in relation to how we measure money ... we were already starting those, but I think it expedited the work, to be honest with you.

So I think those are some of the good things. I think some of the diversity — it allowed us to push quicker, faster in relation to increasing our diversity of our police service, our recruiting efforts.

It was an evolution and not a revolution, because things about revolution sometimes, or when you go too far, we start to lose a lot of things that never should have happened. To give an example: [removing] school resource officers.

And all of a sudden now, that's come full circle and [police] are going back into schools, much like the [EPS] funding formula. So as many of the good things that were done quicker, if you don't have the leadership to actually stay focused on that outside of policing and inside of policing, I think it goes off track and can do more harm than good.

What is the biggest challenge for the next police chief? When they're coming in on day one, what do you think is the first thing they're going to have to deal with?

It depends. I mean, what have we had to spend a lot of time on that we shouldn't have to? Navigation of politics.

But it is what it is. So that is hopefully going to be done at some point, and maybe this change will bring that to be done.

But I think the other piece is ... making sure that we continue to be data-driven and data-led, and that we don't go back to the old way of thinking that policing should be back the way it was in 20 years, where you just go out and arrest people and you don't keep up with the progress that we've made on both ends of it.

I'm not so sure that'll be a challenge, but Edmonton Police Service is the leader, so the best way to continue on is to actually find one of the succession options from inside, in my opinion. And think we've got some bench depth.

So, not my decision to make, but I think it's our best chance for success, to continue the progress that we've made.