Mayor brings community policing issues to Mounties highest level

Lloydminster’s mayor and council sat down with the three highest-ranking Mounties in the country last week – and they came with a list. Bringing concerns heard from the community, including a recent seniors meeting, directly the top of the RCMP food chain.

Canada’s RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme, Alberta K Division commander Trevor Daroux, and Saskatchewan F Division commander Robin McNeil spent two hours at city hall on May 1. The roundtable covered municipal contracts, service standards, the cost of policing, and what comes next for the border city’s unique arrangement.

“It was our City Council’s honour to host Commissioner Duheme and his team here in Lloydminster, sharing our local challenges directly while also learning from them how the RCMP aims to support municipalities in the future,” Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers said after the May 1 meeting. “The value of being able to share our perspectives face-to-face cannot be overstated.”

The visit came at a pivotal moment.

A contract unlike any other

When the federal government negotiates wages for the Mounties at Treasury Board, municipalities absorb whatever increase results – no seat at the table, no ability to push back. Retroactive increases arrive the same way. Lloydminster has already dealt with one since RCMP members unionized.

Lloydminster contracts the RCMP through a municipal police services agreement, funding 90 per cent of the cost. The federal government covers the remaining 10 per cent. What that arrangement does not give the city is any control over what it pays.

“It’s the most unique contract I’ve ever worked with,” Aalbers told residents at a Lloydminster Concerned Citizens for Seniors Care meeting April 28. “If they come forward with new equipment requirements, write the cheque. It’s that simple.”

Nine Mounties short

The detachment’s contracted complement is 57 officers. As of early May, Lloydminster was sitting at roughly 48 – with one more expected imminently.

The shortfall reflects a national problem. The RCMP distinguishes between soft vacancies, where a member is on leave and their position is technically filled, and hard vacancies, where a slot simply sits empty. Retirements are accelerating the gap. Members with 20, 25, or 30-plus years of service are leaving, and recruitment pipelines across Alberta and Saskatchewan are stretched thin.

“We keep asking for more,” Aalbers said to the seniors. “The way I describe it is, if a criminal comes through our city and sees red and blue lights, they’re going to keep moving.”

The city’s approach has been to keep requesting a higher complement, on the theory that persistent asks eventually move the number upward. Whether that produces results remains an open question.

“We never get our full complement,” Aalbers said speaking of Mounties in our community. “So we’re constantly asking for more, hoping that we keep edging that number up.”

Saskatchewan’s unpaid share

Both Alberta and Saskatchewan are each expected to provide the city with a 10 per cent policing grant, reflecting Lloydminster’s cross-border jurisdiction. Alberta pays. Saskatchewan has not – a situation that dates to when the detachment relocated from the old museum building to its current location.

Saskatchewan points to a policing act more than 35 years old, which it says limits its legal obligation to fund policing outside its own borders. Aalbers committed to the LCCSC he’s trying to find the main sticking point.

“Somewhere, somehow, there’s a stick in the cog,” Aalbers said, “and I’m going to try and find that stick.”

The 2032 question, will we still have Mounties?

Layered over the immediate concerns is a longer-range uncertainty: what happens when the Mounties contract expires in 2032?

The previous federal government raised the possibility of stepping back from contract policing before leaving office. No firm commitment for a post-2032 agreement has been extended to Lloydminster.

For Lloydminster, the stakes are unlike anywhere else in the country. The RCMP is the only federal police service in Canada – and the only one with authority on both sides of a provincial border. A city police force would not have that reach.

“You’d have two police forces, and they would meet at the border because they would not have authority to work on the other side,” Aalbers said.

Aalbers said he expects the Mounties to remain in some form regardless of what happens to contract policing nationally. What that looks like for a border city is less clear.

“The RCMP are not going to go away,” he said. “What role do they play? Questionable.”

For now, the May 1 meeting with Commissioner Duheme was a step. Whether it moves the needle on staffing, the Saskatchewan grant, or the 2032 contract will take time to see.

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