EDMONTON — More than four-in-five Albertans in RCMP-served areas say they are satisfied with the policing the national force provides in their community, a new survey commissioned by the Mounties' union indicates.
Conducted between Oct. 27 and Nov. 4 by Pollara Strategic Insights, 43 per cent of Albertans thought the RCMP should "stay the course" while 41 per cent indicated they would like the RCMP to stay but would want to see improvements in their service level.
Of those who indicated they would want the RCMP replaced by a provincial police force, the survey respondents were mostly men between the ages of 35 and 54 living in rural central Alberta and Calgary suburbs.
The survey was responded to by 1,221 Albertans, with the majority being people over the age of 55.
Some of the top priorities survey respondents said the RCMP should improve upon included increasing rural response times and resources, more priority on tackling the opioid crisis and dealing with drug dealers, and ensuring diversity is reflected in local units.
According to the survey, respecting firearms owners and increased local autonomy or control ranked the lowest priorities for Albertans.
The survey was conducted during the same week the province released a report exploring the idea of a provincial police force that outlined it would cost Alberta around $735 million each year to operate its police force, in addition to a projected $366 million in startup costs.
It costs Alberta about $500 million annually to pay for the 1,480 Mounties that police rural areas, First Nations, and communities that do not have municipal forces. The federal government provides $170 million through a cost-sharing agreement to offload some costs.
Many groups across Alberta have cautioned the province about ditching the RCMP in favour of creating its own police force, including Indigenous leaders and various municipal officials.
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The top concerns for those in opposition to replacing the RCMP with provincial police were start-up costs, loss of federal support payments, and that independent reporting ordered by the province to further explore the costs of starting a new police force has not been made public.
More than half of the respondents indicated they resided in Calgary, Edmonton, and the suburbs of the cities. Thirteen per cent of survey participants were from rural areas in central Alberta while nine and per cent were from northern and southern rural areas of the province.
According to Pollara, 63 per cent of respondents were from non-union affiliated households, 18 per cent were from the public sector, and nine per cent were from the private sector.
In a statement, Alex Puddifant, press secretary to Minister of Justice Kaycee Madu, said that Albertans should interpret the survey results through a "critical lens."
"An unspecified portion of respondents were surveyed before the provincial government released hundreds of pages of independent research that lay out a vision for an Alberta provincial police service that's cost-effective, responsive to the needs of Albertans and could better address the root causes of crime in our communities," Puddifant said.
"Furthermore, a massive 53 per cent of respondents live in Calgary and Edmonton – cities not policed by the RCMP, and who aren't effected (sic) by the pervasive issues of rural crime and long response times," Puddifant added.
"This poll doesn't reflect the fact that 47 communities in Alberta with RCMP municipal policing agreements are now grappling with how to pay for the massive policing cost increase resulting from the RCMP's new collective agreement with its union – including back pay to 2016 – negotiations of which Alberta's government was not included."
Pollara estimates the margin of error for the non-probability sample represented in the survey to be plus or minus 2.7 per cent.
