Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has announced the formal creation of an independent agency police service, along with the name of its new chief. Read More
”We already have a couple of expressions of interest… of municipalities that want a sheriff’s detachment and so we can start now. We’re not waiting.”
“We already have a couple of expressions of interest… of municipalities that want a sheriff’s detachment and so we can start now. We’re not waiting.”
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has announced the formal creation of an independent agency police service, along with the name of its new chief.
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At a press conference on Wednesday, Smith said Calgary Police Service deputy chief Sat Parhar has been appointed as the first chief of the new police agency, which will be renamed to the Alberta Sheriffs Police Service. She said the agency will operate as an independent Crown corporation with its head office located in Calgary.
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“The Alberta Sheriffs Police Service is not meant to replace the RCMP or any other police service,” Smith said.
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“It will work alongside existing branches of law enforcement to fill gaps and ensure that resources are used efficiently and, just like most other police services in the province, it will be run separately from the government with civilian oversight.”
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The announcement follows Bill 49, the Public Safety Statutes Amendment Act 2025, which passed in the spring sitting of the legislature. Under the legislation, municipalities will be able to choose whether or not they want to select the new police agency as their local police service once it becomes operational.
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Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis said the province is still ironing out the details when it comes to staffing the new agency, but said there’s been interest from retired police officers to potentially fill the roles.
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“I’m fully optimistic that within the next several months that we should be able to work this out,” Ellis said.
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In the spring, Ellis said the province has already identified roughly 600 people within the Alberta Sheriffs that, with the appropriate training, could become police officers. Those 600 sheriffs would then be moved to the new police agency service, separate from the Alberta Sheriffs.
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Smith said there are currently more than 2,000 sheriffs categorized as peace officers who do prisoner transports and other specialized services. Of the 2,000, she said 650 are “trained up” at a level where they could be categorized as police.
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“We already have a couple of expressions of interest of municipalities that want a sheriff’s detachment and so we can start now. We’re not waiting. We want to make sure that everybody feels that they’ve got the policing that they need close to home, and if sheriffs are one of the options that they want to pursue, we’re happy to work with them on it,” Smith said.