A new provincial police service plans to train about 600 Alberta sheriffs as police officers with six weeks of additional training, Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis says.

Ellis on Tuesday tabled legislation that would allow the government to move 1,200 Alberta sheriff employees and their budget to the new Alberta Sheriff Police Service (ASPS) Crown corporation.

It’s the fourth piece of legislation the United Conservative Party government has introduced to create a provincial policing agency that it says will provide communities with choice in how they want to be policed.

“This will mean faster response times as we augment and support all police services, stronger co-ordination with the police of jurisdiction, and more strategic deployment of police resources,” Ellis said at an embargoed news conference on Tuesday morning.

“The result is safer communities for Albertans and a greater confidence in public safety right across the province.”

Bill 15, the Public Safety and Emergency Services Statutes Amendment Act, would also ensure ASPS officers can continue to run the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) program. SCAN investigates tips from the public about suspicious activity occurring at properties.

Although the UCP government initially proposed the idea of a provincial police service as a potential replacement for the RCMP, the government now says the ASPS will work alongside existing police services and provide communities with an option, should they want an alternative to the RCMP, municipal or Indigenous police service.

Ellis said the communities of Coaldale, located in southern Alberta, and Hardisty, about 200 kilometres southeast of Edmonton, have expressed interest in opening ASPS detachments.

Many Alberta community leaders have advocated for improvements to rural police service and response times, while also expressing concern about municipalities’ rising policing costs.

Others have also said they’d prefer to keep the RCMP and raised concerns about the cost of creating a separate provincial police service.

Ellis did not have many details on Tuesday about where, when or how the new police service would operate. He says new sheriff police would have a distinct uniform from employees working as police officers. The change would also allow them to do policing work without being chaperoned by members of other police services.

“This is the fastest path to get at least 600 or so police officers on the streets of Alberta trying to assist all police of jurisdiction in calls to service,” he said.

The remaining sheriffs will continue in their roles, performing duties that include inmate transfer, courthouse duty or as fish and wildlife officers. 

Although the ASPS has had a chief since last July, the government did not have answers on Tuesday to questions about when the current sheriffs would become ASPS employees, or the overall cost of the transition. Ellis told reporters they would have to wait until the provincial budget is tabled on Thursday.

The Alberta Sheriffs budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year was about $156 million.