Vote delays cash to expand RCMP detachment

Last Updated: Wednesday, January 4, 2006 | 3:08 PM ET

CBC News

A move to add nine new officers to the overwhelmed Hobbema RCMP detachment near Edmonton has been delayed because of the federal election, a spokesman says.

Cpl. Al Fraser says the federal and provincial governments had agreed to increase funding to the RCMP so that the Hobbema detachment could grow to 32 officers. The deal was worth $900,000 in the first year and $650,000 in the following years.

But the deal didn't get approved before the election was called in late November.

Fraser says the RCMP hopes to move ahead with the project, on the theory that the money will be approved after the Jan. 23 vote.

"The RCMP is looking at trying to develop the funding so that we can take a risk-management approach, so to speak, so we can begin putting these people on the ground in the Hobbema area," he said.

In announcing the deal, Solicitor General Harvey Cenaiko said he hoped the new officers would be on the job this month.

The move was in response to a wave of gang-related violence rocking the four First Nations communities in the Hobbema area about 95 kilometres south of Edmonton. In the space of a week this summer alone, police responded to a shooting, a stabbing, a home invasion, a fire bombing and numerous weapons calls.

The 23 RCMP officers now stationed in Hobbema carry 3.5 times the number of cases as officers in other detachments in the country.