On August 14, National President David Neufeld, RVP Valda Behrens, PSAC-Prairies Regional Executive Vice-President Marianne Hladun and USJE Communications Director Sébastien Bezeau continued the joint advocacy campaign to protect jobs in Alberta. The day consisted of site visits to the RCMP Post Garage and West Campus in Edmonton and two separate lobbying meetings.
To begin the day, the team met with staff members of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta: Warren Noga, Manager of Policy and Research and Tammy Reil, Administrative Coordinator for Policy and Advocacy. Both parties committed to continuing regular check-ins to exchange information. The union representatives spoke to the important role that USJE RCMP members play in public safety in Alberta. The RMA staff identified that they are willing to continue regular check-ins with USJE in the future and recommended that USJE also consider meeting with the Alberta Municipalities. USJE-PSAC would like to thank the RMA representatives for their time and for engaging in our RCMP Campaign.
Following that meeting, the team headed to the RCMP Post Garage located at K Division HQ to speak about the Albertans For RCMP Campaign and the USJE’s Serving Together website. The eighteen members in attendance were extremely engaged and asked questions about the campaign. This visit presented as an excellent opportunity for these members to learn more about the work of their union and to ask the union representatives questions about other issues that were important to them.
USJE-PSAC would like to thank Brenda Bond, Director Manager at Post Garage, for facilitating the tour.
In the afternoon, the team met with local United Conservative Party MLA for Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, Scott Cyr, at the UCP Caucus Office in Edmonton.
The dialogue was extremely constructive. MLA Cyr was proud to state that he had toured the RCMP detachments in his riding over the course of his mandate and that he has a very positive working relationship with the RCMP in his area.
The union representatives shared that they had visited a number of detachments in his constituency this past week and that they too were impressed with the work being done in the area. This included the valuable relationships being built with First Nation communities and the service being provided.
When it came to discussing the importance of keeping the RCMP in Alberta and the passing of Bill 49, MLA Cyr was unequivocal in his view that Bill 49 was introduced because of the White Paper that was released by outgoing Prime Minister Trudeau in March 2025. MLA Cyr identified that he sees Bill 49 as a way to ensure there would be strong policing services in the community after 2032 should the RCMP depart.
The union representatives were very appreciative of the time that MLA Cyr spent with them and his interest to learn about USJE’s ongoing RCMP Campaign and the contributions USJE members make to public safety in Alberta.
The last site visit of the day was at the West Campus of the RCMP where six members were in attendance. There was a positive dialogue about USJE’s two RCMP campaigns. USJE-PSAC would like to thank Inspector Breanne Brown for escorting the team on site.
The RCMP site visits over the past four days in Alberta has been crucial in getting out the message about the USJE RCMP Campaign and how USJE members can get involved in the same. It has been encouraging to see how USJE members are willing to engage and contribute to the ServingTogether.ca website. This will be very important in the months ahead as this campaign continues to evolve and educate Canadians on the valuable role that the RCMP plays in protecting Canadians from coast to coast to coast.