Recommendations for Alberta police ignored, rural municipalities say [Video]

Policing shortages and high crime rates run deeper than the province’s “top-down approach” can resolve, said the new president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta.

Kara Westerlund, elected in November to lead the association, said the RMA welcomes a payment hike freeze for RCMP services in rural municipalities. But the organization sees no clear, effective and affordable path forward for policing RMA’s 69 counties and municipal districts.

“We’re never getting anywhere with this top-down approach,” Westerlund told The Macleod Gazette. “The world doesn’t work that way, that things get pushed down and then they work. So there is a lot of frustration on the side of municipalities.”