Mounties get their contract as Alberta opts to continue without provincial police

The Alberta government has renewed its contract for the RCMP to police the province for another 20 years, continuing the Mounties' historic ties to the source of its founding legend.

Like a lot of things Mountie these days, the decision by Premier Ed Stelmach to sign the new deal that covers municipalities without their own police forces has some political implications.

Some critics want Alberta to join provinces like Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador and establish provincial police forces.

The same debate is happening in British Columbia, where the RCMP's 20-year contract is up for renewal next year and the force's image has been battered by high-profile controversies such as the 2007 Taser death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver's airport.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, when he headed the National Citizens' Coalition, proposed an Alberta force 10 years ago with his notorious "firewall letter," the National Post reported.

But the idea encountered a backlash in small-town Alberta, the provincial Conservatives' voting base, where the Post noted the Mounties are treasured. They set up their first base at Fort Macleod, Alta., from where they proceeded to bring law and order to the West.

"There's just too much emotional attachment, symbolic attachment," political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former Harper adviser, told the Post.

Alberta actually had its own police force for 15 years, between 1917 and 1932, when the Mounties pulled out.

The RCMP found itself stretched after the First World War and claimed it lacked the resources to effectively police the Prairies. But the force reportedly also didn't relish enforcing Canada's prohibition laws and raiding speakeasies.

The Mounties returned after Alberta abolished its force as a Depression-era cost saver.

But the link between the Mounties and British Columbia is far less strong. The B.C. provincial police force's origins date back to the late 1850s, before the province joined Confederation.

It had more than 500 members when it was dissolved in 1950, many of them absorbed into the RCMP.

(CBC Photo)