Province to launch inquiry into ‘dysfunctional’ relationships surrounding Edmonton Police Commission

EPS Chief Dale McFee speaks to the Edmonton Police Commission on June 16, 2022 (John Hanson/CTV News Edmonton).

The Alberta minister that oversees policing in the province said Thursday he will launch an inquiry into “the increasingly dysfunctional relationship” between Edmonton police, the commission that oversees it and city council.

It comes a day after the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) sent a letter to Mike Ellis, the minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services, asking him to intervene in and investigate the appointments of two people by Edmonton’s city council to the Edmonton Police Commission (EPC).

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Province to launch inquiry into ‘dysfunctional’ relationships surrounding Edmonton Police Commission

In a media release Thursday afternoon, shortly after the EPC named its new chair and vice-chair, the EPS said it submitted an application on Wednesday to Ellis, asking for “ministerial intervention” in the December appointments of two new members.

One of the new police commissioners, Dan Jones, said late Thursday afternoon he is stepping down from the post, a little more than two hours after the EPS issued a media release saying it wants Alberta’s Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Services to intervene in his and Renee Vaugeois’s appointments.

The EPC had named Jones and Vaugeois to the commission last month.

In a statement to CTV News Edmonton on Thursday, Ellis said ongoing dysfunction between the three bodies “is negatively impacting public safety, public trust and the ability to deliver adequate and effective policing, putting public safety in Edmonton at risk.”

Ellis said both Jones and Vaugeois are stepping away from the positions during the inquiry.

“The allegations contained in this complaint are neither minor nor frivolous and choosing to launch an inquiry is not done lightly,” Ellis said in the statement.

EPS said its request falls under a section of the province’s Police Act in which it’s allowed to submit disagreements with appointments to the minister. Section 30(1.2) says the minister can intervene with the appointments if “it is desirable to do so,” the EPS said.

The police said the appointments of Jones and Vaugeois are the ones they are disputing but that, due to privacy legislation, the department will not publicly address “the nature of the concerns, which generally relate to public-facing activities undertaken by the two appointees in either private or professional capacities.”

Jones said in an EPC media release that he “had not anticipated” his appointment “would cause such consternation and concern arising from any real or perceived conflict of interest which may or may not be determined.”

According to their EPC bios, Jones is a former EPS officer and the current chair of the justice studies program at Norquest College, while Vaugeois is the executive director of the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights and has led initiatives surrounding poverty, policing and youth issues.

The commission named former Edmonton city councillor Ben Henderson as its chair and Shazia Amiri as vice chair Thursday morning. Henderson replaces John McDougall, who quit last month a few days after it became public that he was moving to Portugal and planning to finish his term remotely.

Megan Hankewich, the EPS acting executive director of legal and regulatory services division, said in a late Thursday afternoon media conference the police want the province to look into the process used by city council to choose new police commissioners, so that it “doesn’t just result in the same issues arising with new people.”

“There is a need to look into what that process is in terms of how people with the issues that we’re raising ended up in this place in the first place,” Hankewich said.

Police chief Dale McFee resigned his position in November. Three days after his last day in the position on Feb. 21, he will start a new job as the province’s deputy minister of the executive council and head of the Alberta Public Service.

Henderson, who joined the police commission a year ago, served as a city councillor for the former southside Ward 8 from 2007 to 2021. Amiri, a member of the commission since 2022, is a social worker who has worked with the EPS and with non-profit agencies such as E4C, Boyle McCauley Health Centre and Boyle Street Community Services.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s David Ewasuk