Photo courtesy of the Government of Canada RCMP website.
Rocky Mountain House Council has requested more policing support.
A March 26 letter addressed to Clearwater County Member of Parliament Gerald Soroka, explained that council is concerned about the equity of policing services from the Rocky Mountain House RCMP detachment.
Twelve municipal officers work out of a shared detachment, with 14 provincial members, and four federal members, who serve approximately 12,000 residents in Clearwater County and 3,000 residents of neighbouring First Nations communities.
The town does not confine officers to town boundaries, and municipal officers do respond to calls for service throughout the detachment area.
However, council is concerned about how frequently municipal members are called to backfill provincial and federal positions and is now asking Soroka to advocate for RCMP reinforcements in the detachment.
“Our first obligation is to the residents and ratepayers of Rocky Mountain House,” the letter said. “We cannot continue to subsidize the federal and provincial complement of officers from our municipal policing contract.”