Emily Plihal
Local Journalism
Initiative Reporter
The Town of Peace River recently has received a $30,000 grant from the Alberta government to aid the community in steps to take to increase protective services.
“(We received the) Indigenous and Municipal Police Transition Study Grant,” explains Peace River Mayor Elaine Manzer.
“The Town and other municipalities and Indigenous groups applied for the study grant after discussions with Minister (Mike) Ellis, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services.”
Manzer explains the money is intended to help the Town hire a contractor to conduct a study to determine Peace River’s needs in protective services, including policing.
“The money will help to gather information that the Town and Province will be able to use to decide the quantity and type of police services that best suit the needs of Peace River,” Manzer notes.
“Part of the study will be answering the questions of whether Peace River has a suitable number of RCMP and other protective services.”
Peace River has been focusing on reducing looting, vandalism, and other crimes in the community. The Town’s efforts have been extensive, adding additional security teams to patrol the community.
“The Town has a lot of qualitive information on issues that come under the headings of law enforcement and protective services,” Manzer says.
“We are getting regular monthly statistics on the work of Community Protective Services which involve tickets, tags, warning and education. We also receive quarterly reports from the RCMP on the work they have done for the quarter.”
Manzer says although efforts have been made, issues of homelessness, vandalism, mental health and addictions continue to be very visible and at times of the year increase.
“The Town has discussed these issues several times with various ministers and was advised that this report needed to be done and then further discussions about the conclusions about the needs of Peace River for its Protective Services could happen,” Manzer says of the reasoning to apply for the grant and conduct the study.
“The Town is hiring a contractor to do the work and hopes that the study will not take too long, then will review the results with the Province.”
Manzer says they recently met with Ellis to discuss the issues of vandalism, homelessness, and releases from the Correction Centre that are impacting the town.
“We talked about the therapeutic program that Minister Dan Williams’ department is establishing at the centre after some renovations and hiring of staff,” she adds.
“We are expecting some data on numbers being released from the centre and where and when they are transported from the centre.”
Manzer says Peace River and other communities continue to be very frustrated by the trends in these issues.
“We all look forward to some more assistance from various government agencies to deal with some of the root causes and to help those that are willing to work on transitioning out of their situation,” she says.
“We do realize that not all of the vandalism is caused by homeless but other criminal groups are actively at work in our communities. We continue to ask the RCMP to be visible and active within the town.”
Manzer says the Town’s chief protective officer and bylaw staff are very active, but they also need the community’s help.
“We need residents and businesses to report any incidents they find or observe,” she concludes.
“We need the bail system to be revamped and we need residents and businesses to continue to talk about these issues with provincial MLAs and federal ministers and MPs.”