A new provincially-mandated police committee is beginning to take shape in Lloydminster.
Despite not having a municipal police force and being protected by the RCMP, the city is now mandated to create this new committee.
The terms of reference of this new committee were presented for council at the Feb. 10 Governance and Priorities Committee meeting.
“The Province of Alberta recently made changes to the police act requiring this committee be struck. If you went to the cities of Calgary and Edmonton, they already have a committee. This now applies to not only municipal police forces but also the RCMP,” said Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers.
“There are various discussions around policing and how that is being managed, directed, influenced, and I guess this is the Government of Alberta’s response.”
With recent changes to Alberta’s police act, the city will now form a police committee. The intention behind this committee is to create a stronger connection between the public and the RCMP.
Some key considerations and duties of the committee include, presenting concerns and interests of the public to the Officer in Charge, assisting in the selection of the Officer in Charge and report annually to the minister of public safety and emergency services.
Coun. Michele Charles Gustafson wanted some specifics around recruitment.
“What efforts do you use to recruit onto this committee, will people be able put people’s names forward, will it be a shoulder tap? How do we get the people that sit on this committee,” she asked.
“We are currently looking through that as administration. We’re certainly wanting to construct this that creates a good amount of diversity that represents the City of Lloydminster well,” said Andrew DeGruchy senior manager, public safety.
“We’re looking to council to provide some potential nominees as well as working through administration around known community members we think would serve this community well.”
DeGruchy says the committee will have a lot of growing to do in its initial year of inception.
“With it being the first year of creation, we certainly have a year of growing to do to really develop what that role is going to be of the committee through time, so we may see changes through that period,” said Degruchy.
Charles Gustafson recommended going to the public to potentially find people for the committee who may be a good fit.
DeGruchy said administration would work to publicly reveal the committee and how people could provide input.
Charles Gustafson followed up by asking a question regarding how they would measure the success of the committee.
“As indicated previously, we know we have some growing to do in terms of creating the committee and getting that committee connected to the public to really understand the policing needs within the community,” said DeGruchy.
He says it may take several years for the committee’s priorities to have an effect.
“The committee has some challenges because even to relay that to our RCMP services and see effectiveness through time will take several years to see those priorities start to develop and change our community.”
DeGruchy says he will see success in the committee based on their connection to the public.
Council accepted the presentation of the committee’s terms of reference as information and requested it be brought to a future council meeting for decision.
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