Alberta government launches 2 new sheriff surveillance teams aimed at reducing rural crime

The Alberta government has created two new sheriff surveillance teams to try to prevent criminals from targeting farms and rural businesses.

Two eight-member teams will each cover half of the province, casting watchful eyes at the request of local police, said Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis on Thursday.

"There is no safe haven for criminal activity in Alberta," Ellis said at an announcement in Carstairs, which is about 60 kilometres north of Calgary.

The teams, each consisting of seven plainclothes officers and a sergeant, are already gathering evidence and intelligence to help disrupt crime, he said.

It's the kind of work that smaller police detachments in sparsely populated communities are often too busy to do, he said. The program will cost $2.1 million per year.

Statistics Canada last year published data using 2021 crime statistics showing the volume and seriousness of crimes was higher in rural areas than urban ones. The three Prairie provinces had the biggest gaps in severity between rural and urban crime.

Mike Letourneau, superintendent of the Alberta sheriffs, said the teams could be especially useful at identifying break-and-enter suspects and people in the illegal drug trade.

Although the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) already conduct surveillance in some rural areas, their focus is organized crime, Ellis said. Some suspects fall outside their mandate.

Once demand increases, the superintendent will create a triage system, Ellis said. Adding more teams is also an option if rural communities demand it, he said.

Carstairs Mayor Lance Colby said on Thursday thefts are hurting rural businesses and driving up their insurance costs. The surveillance teams could be a "game changer" in holding thieves to account, he said.

"People need to be safe on their farm and in their communities and this will definitely help that," Colby said.

Union says pay lags new duties

Bobby-Joe Borodey, a vice-president with the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), which represents the province's sheriffs, said their pay is not increasing with their growing responsibilities.

"They will be doing much more dangerous work than what they were previously doing," she said.

There are about 570 members working as a type of sheriff trained to do surveillance, according to the union.

Rural Municipalities of Alberta president Paul McLauchlin says he welcomes any investment in tackling rural crime. However, he says community-based staff and services tend to be more effective than centralized services dispatched to different parts of the province.

Before the province changed its community policing funding model in 2019, Ponoka County, where McLauchlin is reeve, hired and cost-shared a plainclothes officer who successfully improved the property crime rate.

He said it doesn't matter how many more officers or sheriffs the province hires if they're a 30-minute drive away when a crime takes place.

McLauchlin would like to see the province invest more in services that prevent crime, such as mental health and addiction, addressing poverty and early childhood education.

More boots on the ground doesn't prevent crime, nor does it stop suspects from being released from jail, he said.

"We're very susceptible to crime, but we're also susceptible to the same people committing crime," McLauchlin said of rural areas.

The new surveillance teams are the latest public safety project in which the United Conservative Party government has asked sheriffs to work in co-operation with police.

Last year, concerns about crime and disorder in cities prompted Edmonton and Calgary pilot projects in which sheriffs were paired with city police officers.

These pilot projects were eventually replaced with increased numbers of police officers assigned to core areas.