Dale McFee, chief of the Edmonton Police Service, will soon take over as Alberta’s chief bureaucop – pardon me, bureaucrat – Premier Danielle Smith announced yesterday, surprising absolutely no one.
Chief McFee will retire as Edmonton’s chief constable on Feb. 21. He will take over as the Deputy Minister of Executive Council three days later.
The chief, Ms. Smith said in a short news release yesterday, “will bring a fresh perspective to our government’s work and will help us deliver on our priorities for Albertans.”
How fresh Chief McFee’s perspective may be is a legitimate topic of debate, but it’s certainly much the same as the premier’s and her inner circle of political advisers, which no doubt explains much of his appeal to the United Conservative Party.
As such, his looming appointment on Feb. 24 as the province’s top civil servant, illustrates the continuing politicization of the provincial public service under the UCP.
There is good and bad to this new reality. Obviously, it’s unfortunate that the honourable Canadian tradition of a neutral civil service committed to impartially implementing the elected government’s policies is disappearing. On the other hand, it will make it easier for a new government to make the clean sweep of the top levels of the Alberta public service, required after decades of Conservative rule, that Rachel Notley’s cautious government failed to implement after 2015.
Chief McFee has long been openly aligned with the UCP, often undermining Edmonton City Council on such files as how to deal the city’s growing homeless population, safe supply and testing of potentially toxic drugs, and the police department’s huge appetite for tax dollars.
Under Chief McFee’s leadership, the EPS was a key part of the co-ordinated public advocacy program by Alberta police leaders that used tax dollars to support the United Conservative Party’s abstinence only/only abstinence drug policy in the lead-up to the 2023 provincial election.
The advocacy program’s highly effective copaganda contributed meaningfully to the UCP’s re-election.
“I am deeply committed to our province and to driving positive change within our public service,” Chief McFee said in a canned quote in the government’s press release yesterday. “I look forward to working with our public service to meet the goals and aspirations of our province.”
Again, whether that’s really his objective might be an appropriate topic for debate, but he can certainly be expected to work with the public service to support the goals and aspirations of the UCP.
Speaking of which, Chief McFee’s next job came open when the previous holder, Ray Gilmour, was named interim CEO of the Alberta Investment Management Corp., better known as AIMCo, when the Smith Government fired the Crown pension management corporation’s former CEO and its board of directors early in November.
The new chair of the AIMCo Board will be the eminently unqualified former Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, another example of the thorough politicization of supposedly neutral public institutions in the service of the UCP and its increasingly open sovereignist agenda.
As chief bureaucop, then, Chief McFee can be expected to play a leading role in the creation of the Alberta provincial police, an idea opposed by most Albertans if public opinion polling is to be believed but which the UCP is pressing ahead with determinedly even as it covets the assets of our Canada Pension Plan retirement savings.
Alberta’s constitutionally dubious scheme to set up a border patrol force, also announced yesterday by Ms. Smith, is a performative part of this effort, although in this case likely mainly intended to try to own Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for not responding quickly enough to president-elect Donald Trump’s false claims that illegal migrants and drugs are flooding into the United States from Canada.
I ask you, do we really need to spend nearly $30 million to pay a few hundred Alberta Sheriffs to run around just north of the U.S. boundary with military assault weapons? (Or, as the government’s news release gently describes them, “carbine rifles (weapons for tactical operations).”
One shudders to think what the U.S. Border Patrol might do if these clowns accidentally drove across the world’s longest undefended border into militia country, also known as Montana!
I’m not surprised by this and also feel this is not a good idea, although for different reasons.
First of all as police chiefs go, I thought McFee was fairly good on the whole, although there were things he did I had reservations about. But in my view this is not about his politics, him personally or his character at all.
The problem with this is his experience and background. His recent experience in working in public service is at the municipal level, not the provincial one. There are very different issues, structures and funding models for these two distinct levels of government and I feel that alone will be a huge learning curve. He also does bring a certain perspective to the position, that of law enforcement. While this is important and they certainly have to deal with social problems often, the approach and tools they have of course are of law enforcement. There can and should be various other sometimes more effective approaches to deal with these problems. This can be a bit of a blind spot for those who have spent most of the career in law enforcement.
I know conservatives generally love and worship the law and order types – police and military, of course unless and until law and order conflicts with their agenda, such as the convoy blockades, a preacher that refuses to follow the law and so on.
I really don’t think with his background, McFee is the right person for this job.
Konservatives tend to strongly object to law and order if it conflicts in any way with their personal economic pursuits. “what’s in it for me” and “I’m all right, sorry about your luck” even trumps Kon magical thinking when it comes to the law.
ridiculous, slaps on the back buddied cronyism, this failed incompetent police chief, resigns amidst 2 complaints i have filed against his job and duty leaving open matter undressed to tuck tail and abandon his post for a new job, avoiding accountability or recursive action to blatant abuse of process and clear malfeasance of a public office should show you how responsible this clown really is… so received 2 letters today from the LERB (law enforcement review board) hearing my appeal of his dismissal of my complaints against the chief using legislative loop hole under the police act section 43(11) those 2 letters stating a “loss of jurisdiction” due to the chiefs resignation essentially axing my complaints validity and insulating McFee once again x2 jurisdictional… when are people going to learn that these politicians could care less about their job and duty to the people of this province… McFee your such a coward. truly pathetic (shake my head)
The sheriffs will be armed with “carbine rifles (weapons for tactical operations)” running around just north of the U.S. boundary. Please enlighten this easterner as to the duties expected of these heavily armed public servants. With or without night vision goggles, will they be empowered to shoot would be refugees at the border southbound for the United States to escape the evil Trudeau? Will they be authorized pick off alien folk skedaddling north into Canada fearful of the clutches of the trump?
Tom: We may never know what they’re authorized to do, but I can assure you that if they shoot anyone, no matter how egregiously, ASIRT (the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team) is likely to find they did nothing wrong, and in the unexpected event that ASIRT does suggest criminal charges, the Crown Prosecution Service will refuse to lay them. TIA (This Is Alberta). DJC
TIA.
https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/man-who-set-fires-inside-calgary-s-municipal-building-lost-testicle-during-arrest-asirt-1.7143334
Abs: Exactly. TIA. DJC
“One shudders to think what the U.S. Border Patrol might do if these clowns accidentally drove across the world’s longest undefended border into militia country, also known as Montana!”
I hear New Jersey has drones. Perhaps Montana could borrow some.
Appointing their cronies is what the UCP does best. There was something predictable about this before it was even announced.
Will the border patrol force the AESO to let in clean Montana energy to appease another American billionaire? https://x.com/maxfawcett/status/1786492559033765962
Or is the USMCA just so yesterday as the kids would say?
Thank you Emily: This is too funny. That renewable electricity from the Montana wind farms comes in through what is called “The Montana-Alberta Tie-line” (MATL) It is a line of lattice towers the UCP/Cons forced through southern Alberta farm and ranch land, too often right next to farmers’ homes. So now it looks like the UCP don’t want that lower-priced renewable electricity in our grid to protect the technologically obsolete gas plants built by their friends and supporters.
As MATL points out on its web site: “As an unregulated investment, the line is fully funded by its owners, so there is no cost to ratepayers for the operation of MATL.”
Can the same be said for the rest of Alberta’s grid? Every Albertan with an electrical meter provides a guaranteed return on investment to the companies, AND we pay them for transmitting the electricity, THEN we pay for the electricity itself. Now, thanks to the UCP’s moratorium on renewables, electricity will be mostly generated by high-cost fossil gas.
For the UCP, free markets are like the Rule of Law, only okay until it inconveniences their supporters. Buggy whip makers of the world unite!
Drones? We elected one, plus a passel of idiots! What can we expect? Behold!
This reminds me of how Rawls, in The Wire, gets promoted to Superintendent of the Maryland State Police simply for remaining silent about the homelessness killings fiasco.
Just imagining a conversation in the Premier’s Office where Trashcan Dani is promising a top-level promotion to Mcfee for tearing up the houseless encampments right before Christmas last year. My lord…
If trump is concerned about the border then he should be putting more of his guards at it. Why are we paying for his security? I’m not willing to pay for it. He can send in more border patrol on his side, build a wall to tunnel or fly over, bring in the marines, but he can pay for it, not me. I’m not willing to be his free tfw. We have better things to spend our money on.
Great question. Here’s my answer: because the border and fentanyl excuse is a red herring. It’s because congress is the only body that can enact tariffs; but the president can do it only in cases of national security. So Trump uses that excuse (like he did last time with tariffs on aluminum) so that he doesn’t have to beg congress (which, while Republican, have only a one-seat majority and plenty of members whose states would be hurt by tariffs). What really grinds my gears is that we are all falling for it, assuming that if we ‘Really, really try!’, then Trump will spare us his tariffs. He won’t because it’s the only policy issue he’s never changed his mind about since the 1980’s; it’s a way to reduce (or eliminate) income tax and, possibly, create economic chaos in other countries (all the better for the billionaires to swoop in and buy distressed assets once the dust clears). As much as I dislike Doug Ford, he seems to be the only leader in Canada who gets this.
Unsurprisingly, this particular ideologically aligned reality remains forever frozen in time, i.e., “. . . your revolution is over, condolences, the bums lost . . .”[Language warning.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Xv-N9ssiw
Law and order politics, a politically designed and calculated use and manipulation of politically self serving moral panics, and the politics of fear are all socially constructed concepts that are associated and interwoven with power dynamics, authority, and influence; where, “Crime is a judgment made by some persons about the behavior and characteristics of others. No behavior is inherently criminal; rather, criminality is a concept that is created through the formulation of “criminal definitions.” And because, “the law is a reflection of current interests, it changes with the “interest structure”; which has been the documented case historically.
The particular reciprocal relationship is a natural fit because, “Politicians and government officials use fear of crime to win elections, increase government expenditures and discredit political opposition. Such campaigns are most successful when they play on public fears of particular target populations. A symbiotic relationship then develops between politicians and the media and becomes a catalyst for contrived crises. The media echoes the discourse of politicians during election campaigns, while increased media coverage of an issue increases pressures on politicians to provide solutions. Increased coverage and sensationalization of crime, along with a linkage implied or portrayed between crime and race or ethnicity, intensify the boundaries drawn between majority and minority communities.”
https://nacla.org/article/rise-crime-disorder-and-authoritarian-policing-introductory-essay
And as the blog author as already hinted at and/or noted, “The police have always been a powerful conservative political force. Former police chiefs end up as political candidates and politicians quite frequently—think Julian Fantino, Bill Blair and Rick Hanson. But what Thomson’s reporting has revealed was an unprecedented and coordinated campaign by police to elect their preferred political party–Danielle Smith’s UCP.”
https://www.theprogressreport.ca/progress_report_342
Hold on here just a minute, isn’t Dingy Smith constantly barking about the Feds staying in their lane? Seems to me border security is a Federal thing and not Provincial, so why is she pissing away $30m to roam the border, or has she got some sort of refund policy where Trudeau writes her a cheque for this? We certainly hope these folks running around the border are paid minimum wage, because that’s the best the UCP can do.
Oh, it’s the same old song she and her gang sing about law and order: the most important thing a government can do, until it’s their friends who are doing things that are illegal.
It’s obvious that Harper will take control of our pension plan and McFee the Provincial Police Force and to hell with what the people want. Poilievre will help her get control of our CCP and kick out the RCMP and force Canadians to give Alberta Equalization Payments to help them replace the billions lost because of slashing Lougheed’s oil royalties and corporate taxes and the senior fools who support them will be thrilled. Until they lose their Carbon Tax Rebates, their CCP, and Poilievre destroys our Public Healthcare system and forces the into an American Style System. Let’s hope Easterners are a lot smarter than Albertans.
Alan K. Spiller: Read the previous blog about Rachel Notley. Albertans didn’t know how good they had it under her. The closest type of premier we had to Peter Lougheed.
Hate to say this, but if this is the way things are going with CPP (I don’t thing you meant CCP, which is the Chinese Communist Party), I hope Ontario grabs its share before Alberta gets gifted 53%, which I’m sure PPs conservatives would be happy to make happen.
These days, so-called liberal-democracies are in decline. As rights are rolled back, and more limitations and restrictions are put on that ever-growing list of undesirables, notions such as non-partisanship with soon seem very quaint.
The problem is that the leadership of liberal-democracies have utterly failed to so any resolve or strength in holding positions that are clearly moral and worthy. Rather, the leadership is, more often that not, mealy-mouthed, cowardly, and incapable to presenting a coherent defence of anything. Every day, they are embarrassed by knuckle-dragging troglodytes and their simpleminded followers, and it’s a very bad look.
I have no doubt that, if this were the late 1930s, Hitler would be leading the globe, unopposed.
Not exactly on topic, but relevant. The move to authoritarianism is well underway and with it the removal of ‘Democracy’. I think we are seeing it in the province and soon at the national lever. As PP has proven, along with his advisor S. Harper, they have no love for a fair and open democracy in Canada. AB is the microcosm and Canada the macrocosm it seems. https://meaninginhistory.substack.com/p/more-on-the-plight-of-the-west?publication_id=473679&post_id=153136095&isFreemail=true&r=d1t0e&triedRedirect=true
Everybody loves the flat-foot bosses. Bill Blair should have gone to prison after the 2010 g-20 abomination, and yet he’s found many ways to be useful to li’l Magus and co. Clearly, both Grits and Kons can find a way to get along if they focus on their shared love of fascist social control.
Smith’s actions regarding the border have a lot to do with showing Trump she will do anything and everything he says, while, of course, taking the opportunity to smear Trudeau. But the fact that Smith is going along with this border fabrication shows how spinless she is in the face of someone who has more power. If this tragedy wasn’t so pathetic is would be laughable.
Every day I’m losing hope in this province, which is quickly sliding into a fascist cesspool with the full support of its base of medieval peasants and useful stooges. I’m ready to leave just as many progressives are ready to leave the USA. Let it rot from the inside out. Plato was right in saying that people are generally unfit for a democracy. His piece “The Allegory of the Cave” is so applicable to today that it’s shocking true.
Not surprised at all. I expected just that. Our Fire Chief from Edmonton went there too. Can Smith not pick on Calgary, Red Deer, etc. or just tearing apart Edmonton. But she does certainly pick those who believe in HER dictatorship beliefs and Harper’s. Isn’t it funny how Harper recently got his appointment. Been his agenda on desks from beginning of the UCP and beforehand. I’m disgusted.