Alberta’s remodelled Victim Services Unit extends rural reach, minister claims

George Lee,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A shift to regionalization extends victim services access to “every Albertan in every corner of the province,” says Mike Ellis, the minister of public safety and emergency services.

Before the change, 14 areas of Alberta went unserved, Ellis wrote in an opinion piece his ministry distributed to media. “That means if you were a victim of crime in a certain part of Alberta, you had no service. This was unacceptable.”

Yet the NDP says the model — which came into effect Oct. 1 — does the opposite.

“There’s a really simple way to fix the problem: fund those areas, fill the gaps,” said David Shepherd, the opposition’s shadow minister to Ellis’s portfolio.

“Instead they tore the whole system down and left even bigger gaps and made bigger holes. That makes absolutely no sense,” Shepherd told The Macleod Gazette.

Ellis, the province’s deputy premier and the member for Calgary-West, wrote that the new model standardizes and improves resource-sharing, consistency and stability.

It consolidates 60 units into four hubs, one in each of St. Paul, Grande Prairie, the Edmonton International Airport and Airdrie. The old way, support workers were based in RCMP detachments, and the service was operated by local volunteers and their organizations.

A ministry statement pegged victim services funding at $26.7 million a year, up from $20 million. Frontline staffing increases to 153 positions from 130, and each head office will have up to 10 support staff for its frontliners.

Each RCMP detachment will have a local navigator to work with victims in person, the ministry statement says.

Ellis said frontline employees and local volunteer advocates will now have the resources and training necessary to better serve victims in their communities.

But Shepherd, the member for Edmonton-City Centre, said a decades-old system “built by Albertans, helping Albertans” had critical ties to the victims it served.

Victim services personnel and volunteers usually lived in and understood the communities they served, working alongside local RCMP who also know their communities well, he said.

The regionalization model removes direct and often immediate contact with frontliners within RCMP detachments for victims needing help, he said. That’s particularly important in smaller communities, because there’s more chance victims will run into the people they’re staying away from.

Often, the situation involves victims of domestic abuse, Shepherd said.

“Having people locally who understand the nuances, who understand the challenges, and can provide that support immediately, right there, same day, on the spot — that makes a big difference,” Shepherd said.

Ellis said the government’s decision to change was made with “careful consideration of the current challenges facing the system.”

He wrote that a “comprehensive review” featured discussions with 150 stakeholder groups and “identified inconsistencies and gaps in services that had been developing over a long period of time and needed to be addressed.”

Ellis’s opinion article quotes two mayors who support the move.

Mayor Megan Hanson, from the Town of Sylvan Lake, said: “Under the previous victims services model, staff and volunteers in Sylvan Lake tried valiantly to provide and maintain supports for victims of crime but lacked adequate supports. This shift to a new model is a positive and much-needed change for our community.”

Airdrie Mayor Peter Brown said: “We look forward to working with the new team, providing the same efficient, caring and compassionate service that supports our community at their most vulnerable times.”

In other published reports, however, the president of Rural Municipalities of Alberta has spoken strongly against the new model.

Paul McLauchlin characterized the change as a move with ulterior motives. The province is taking direct control of victim services to undermine the RCMP, helping build a case for replacing the national service with a provincial one, he said.

McLauchlin, the reeve of Ponoka County, said services will suffer in most of rural Alberta because they’ll be too far away to be effective.

Shepherd agrees with McLauchlin’s assessment. “I can’t take the minister seriously here, that he’s doing all this with the intent of supporting those few communities that needed that help, when he could have simply gone in, provided the funding, and supported local organizations to get the services on the ground.”

Ellis’s opinion piece concludes: “Alberta’s government is taking action so every community across our province will have access to the services and support. To those who are victims of crime or tragedy, Alberta’s government will be there regardless of where you live.”

George Lee,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Macleod Gazette