The Grande Prairie Police Commission sat in front of city council’s Public and Protective Services Committee during their most recent meeting to deliver a second-quarter update regarding the ongoing transition into a city policing model.
Grande Prairie Police Commission Chair Dan Wong spoke on a few highlights during the meeting, including recruiting, Enforcement Services, and more.
He says since their last report, Grande Prairie Enforcement Services established a new community engagement team to address some of the social disorder in the city’s downtown core and park system.
Wong says the commission has not faced any trouble when it comes to recruiting, and adds that an additional call for even more experienced officers will occur sometime in the third quarter of this year.
“Recruitment seems to be doing really well, there’s an experienced officer class who graduated in May of this year,” he says.
On top of experienced officer recruiting, the first batch of new recruits has already begun their training. Wong says he is pleased to see the amount of community support as much of the training is possible thanks to local entities.
“All of the local training that’s been set up is pretty incredible, they have the ability to employ ground control tactics, driving, firearms, as well as all the academic training,”  he says. “All the systems have been set up for training new recruits in Grande Prairie, which is one of the goals that was set up in the transition plan.”
Wong says now that officer training, including intelligence and physical aptitude testing, can be delivered at a local level, the commission is “confident” that the financial obligations on the city will remain within the budget, and insists there are no concerns regarding the transition timeline moving forward.
