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Building from the ground up in Grande Prairie: Pioneering a new era in Alberta law enforcement

In the expansive landscape of Alberta, no new municipal police services had emerged in 67 years. That all changed in 2023 when the City of Grande Prairie made the decision to transition away from the RCMP’s contract policing model. With a focus on community engagement and modern policing strategies, GPPS aims to set itself apart and redefine the standard of law enforcement in the province.

During a recent trip to Northern Alberta, Blue Line had the opportunity to speak with each of Grande Prairie Police Service’s (GPPS) inaugural eight members and learn about their diverse backgrounds and experiences. This was just a glimpse into what will shape GPPS’s new identity.

The original eight

In the past eight months, GPPS achieved a significant milestone by hiring its initial eight members.

Chief Dwayne Lakusta was followed by Supt. John Respet, with 27 years in the RCMP, and Supt. Greg Redl, with 21 years in various RCMP detachments. Similarly, S/Sgt. Mike Lefebvre, the fourth sworn member, had 24 years of RCMP experience across multiple provinces.

Sergeants Shawn Graham and Jason McFarlane, the fifth and seventh members, both have over two decades of policing experience; Graham solely with the RCMP and McFarlane with Edmonton Police Service and the RCMP.

Coming in as the sixth member was Cst. Graham Bourke, who spent 14 years between the RCMP and the B.C. Sheriff Service.

The eighth member, Cst. Brenda Tunke, marked a milestone as the first female and Indigenous recruit, bringing 14 years of Edmonton Police Service experience.

The team expressed immense pride in being part of establishing this new service, embracing both challenges and opportunities.

The unveiling of the first GPPS cruisers. Photo: Brittani Schroeder

Roles and responsibilities

As the GPPS team moves further into the transition plan, they will have respective roles in recruitment, police operations, training, and more. But over the next few months, they’ll all wear many different hats.

Respet, whose official title is Officer in Charge of Police Operations, will focus on everything from parking tickets to homicide once the transition is complete, but before then, he will help out with whatever is required. “It doesn’t matter what rank or title you have, there’s work to be done,” he said.

Redl’s role includes logistics, which involves acquiring uniforms, vehicles, body armour, firearms, and more. He’s been busy since being hired, tasked with finding high-quality items that would last for many years. “I also want our equipment and gear to attract new employees. We need to have the best equipment!” he said. As more items come into the office, Redl shared that it’s a great physical manifestation of all the work he and the greater team have done so far.

Lefebvre, Graham, Bourke and Tunke are all part of the training and recruitment units, which also fall under Redl’s purview. Even though McFarlane isn’t technically part of the recruitment unit, he knows it’s “all hands on deck” and is helping out wherever he can.

Executive Director Darrin Balanik, who is on the civilian side of operations after a 32-year police career, will spend the next two years managing the transition and ensuring policies and procedures are in place to meet the provincial government’s standards and requirements. “I chair six distinct working group committees for the Grande Prairie Transition Plan. The working groups meet every two weeks to keep progressing the Grande Prairie Police Transition. There are a lot of moving parts, and it’s my job to keep track of all the interconnected work and accomplishments,” he said.

Recruitment and growth

With the RCMP contract date terminating on March 30, 2026, one of GPPS’ main priorities over the next two years will be recruitment. During the initial recruitment campaign, GPPS received a “significant” level of interest from both experienced officers and potential new recruits. This level of interest came from a wide range of applicants with diverse backgrounds, including ethnicity, gender, lived experiences, professional careers, schooling, and geographical locations.

The inaugural experienced officer class began on May 27, and the first recruit class—increased from 8 members to 12 due to interest—is set to start on Sep. 9.

Redl has been heavily involved in the recruitment process. He has attended career fairs, designed the application forms, and has started to establish the processes for applications. As part of his role, he also needs to source everything GPPS needs to meet the provincial standards for recruiting, such as the facilitators to run the physical, vision and psychological tests, the equipment, the test booklets and the testing locations. Redl is looking forward to the days when the recruitment and training processes are all established and in place because he’ll be “able to look at it all from a higher-level view, rather than being in the thick of it every day.”

“This is all brand new for us. The members overseeing the recruitment and training units are mostly former RCMP members, and the practices for hiring municipal police officers are quite different,” said Lakusta.

When fully operational, GPPS aims to have roughly 200 people, including sworn and civilian members. One hundred members will be sworn officers, followed by 30 to 40 municipal peace officers and outreach workers, and the rest admin staff. They will all serve the roughly 70,000 people who reside in Grande Prairie.

Cst. Graham Bourke (left) and Chief Dwayne Lakusta showcasing the new GPPS uniform and vehicle designs. Photo: Brittani Schroeder

Training initiatives

Training is another important focus for the GPPS team as they build their new service.

The province has strict guidelines for recruit training, but there is a little more flexibility when it comes to experienced officers, shared Redl. As the GPPS officers will report to the RCMP over the next two years, Redl and the training unit want to ensure they provide their new members with whatever training the RCMP would have so they are ready to work alongside them. Edmonton Police Service’s experienced officer training was also consulted to see what GPPS could learn from as they designed their own program.

Grande Prairie Police Service recognizes that many of its members will come from the RCMP and will have been trained differently than Alberta’s municipal police officers. “This is why everyone will go through the same training when they’re hired, so that we know they’re all on the same page and they’ve done the training recently. This will give us more time to prepare for in-service training and recertifications in the future,” Graham explained.

An example of the differences between RCMP and municipal police service training pertains to handcuffing techniques. Bourke, who came from a career in the RCMP, explained that there are four approved handcuffing methods in the national police force. “Those methods may be more traditional. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel at GPPS, but we’re able to research which handcuffing methods are the safest to use when necessary and implement them here,” he said.

Adding new training skillsets for GPPS members doesn’t stop with handcuffs. The training unit has recently travelled to Louisville, Kentucky, to the Gracie University to learn the Gracie Survival Tactics (GST). This defensive tactics system is based on Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and incorporates techniques into a system designed to help officers verbally and physically de-escalate while humanely prevailing resistant and/or aggressive subjects. These tactics will be taught at GPPS.

“Going forward, our training will be done locally. We’re also bringing in local historians, people from different ethnic backgrounds, and Indigenous elders to instruct so when our officers hit the street, they understand the history, the culture and the demographic challenges in the area,” said Executive Director Darren Balanik.

Introducing Mobile Outreach

Grande Prairie Police Service will be creating a tiered model of policing. This will include their Mobile Outreach program, which consists of civilian members working with subject matter experts in a variety of disciplines.

“We don’t need a fully trained constable or sergeant with a badge and gun to attend every call. Because of some peoples’ backgrounds, it might even be traumatic to involve the police in every interaction,” said Balanik. The Mobile Outreach team will assist the vulnerable populations and ensure they get the proper referrals to mental health providers, hospitals, housing, and more.

“We will work closely with different agencies across the city, and strike a balance between enforcement and intervention. Homelessness, social disorder, and the opioid crisis are all affecting communities across Canada, but incarceration shouldn’t be the first step when it comes to people suffering from complex needs. We want to address the root causes of the behaviour that’s putting people in unfortunate situations,” shared Lakusta.

In addition, GPPS is looking to have mental health workers attend specific calls alongside officers. “As the call for service comes in, the individual can be triaged by officers and the nurse and properly attended to,” said Bourke. The Police and Crisis Team (PACT) section of the proposed GPPS model would consist of four teams, each composed of a police member and mental health workers, providing 24/7 service coverage.

Chief Dwayne Lakusta speaks during his swearing-in ceremony. Photo: Brittani Schroeder

Navigating public perceptions

During a transition from a federal policing model to a municipal police service, in a community that has only ever known policing by the RCMP, support from the locals is of the utmost importance.

Respet shared that he has only felt a “tremendous amount of support” from the community, but Grande Prairie Police Commission Chair Dan Wong said that he still sees a bit of negativity from the public. “Some people see this as a waste of time, or they’re happy with the RCMP. So, we’re just going to try to engage with these people, sometimes one on one or in groups, to show them how this will be beneficial,” said Wong.

When the GPPS team is out spreading awareness, they focus on the advantages of a municipal police service, such as the local governance and oversight, and the ability to pivot and react overnight to emerging trends. “We live here, and we will know what can serve our community the best,” said Lakusta. The GPPS team has also been asking what community members would like to see from the new police service and returning that key information to the planning table.

“In the end, it’s not about the RCMP or GPPS; it’s about the people of Grande Prairie. We need to make sure the public is confident that a police officer will show up when a call for service comes in. It’s always about public safety.”

Another challenge GPPS is facing is not knowing what they don’t know. “What’s around the corner?” said Respet. “I thought I knew everything there was to know about policing, but building a police service? There’s no playbook or manual to follow.”

Respet’s goal, similar to Lakusta, Redl, Balanik and Wong, is that no matter the challenges they face, there should be a “seamless transition of command.”

Leveraging support from municipal police services

Each GPPS member knows that they couldn’t do this on their own and are thankful for the assistance they’ve received from other municipal police services, like Edmonton Police Service, Calgary Police Service, Medicine Hat Police Service and Lethbridge Police Service.

“There are a lot of decisions to be made here. Being able to pick up the phone and ask questions, be humble and say, ‘I don’t know what this is, please help me’, is huge,” said Lakusta.

For Wong, he recognizes that a new police service and commission hasn’t been set up in Alberta since 1956, and his team is learning the ropes by gathering information from across the country. “If there are police services out there with good advice, we welcome it. We’re trying to educate ourselves so that we can eventually become subject matter experts. The best thing you can do is admit what you don’t know and then look for the answer.”

From left to right: Supt. Greg Redl, Cst. Brenda Tunke, Sgt. Jason McFarlane, Chief Dwayne Lakusta, Cst. Graham Bourke, Supt. John Respet. Photo: Brittani Schroeder

Vision for the future

The GPPS team has high hopes for the service’s future. While opinions varied on what was most important, they all shared the hope that they would create one of the most professional, efficient police services that would become an example for other municipal agencies while also connecting with the community in a positive way.

“We only have this opportunity once, so we need to do it right. If other communities decide to do this transition, we want them to be able to look at us and see that we did it the right way, and they can follow what we did,” said Respet.

Redl, Lefebvre and McFarlane shared similar sentiments. Their hopes are that when they look back, five to ten years down the road or even in retirement, they can proudly say, “I helped build that.”

Graham and Tunke hoped for a strong partnership with the community of Grande Prairie. “It’s not just cops who solve crimes; it’s police and the community together,” said Graham.

Tunke agreed and added that she hoped GPPS would always be seen as approachable, and that the community has pride in their service.

Embracing change and innovation

Lakusta believes that making a difference starts at the top. He shared that this includes having the right people with the right attitude there for the right reasons. “Quite often in policing, we stick to doing things a certain way because we don’t like change. But we need to change because society is changing, as are its expectations.”

“We are a police service being created in the 2020s, and we need to meet the needs of the modern society. We need the policies, equipment, technologies and programs to reflect that. And we will,” said Redl. “We are a modern agency for a modern society, with no baggage from the past pulling us back.”

The service plans to have the newest equipment and technology, like new sidearms, a drone program and innovative software. There will also be high-visibility policing in the city of Grande Prairie, which means more officers on the street and more vehicles on the road.

They also are in the first stages of developing an employee family assistance program and mental wellness/preparedness program. “We have been doing a lot of research on the programs currently offered, and we have the ability to pick and choose what will be best for our team. This is going to be a huge part of our culture because we want to make sure our members are looked after mentally and physically,” said Lakusta.

Editor Brittani Schroeder and Chief Dwayne Lakusta.

Reflections from GPPS

When Blue Line gathered final reflections from its original eight members, distinct themes surfaced.

Firstly, Grande Prairie’s scenic landscape was highlighted by Balanik and Respet, praising its lakes, trails and golf courses. McFarlane expressed pride in serving such a close-knit community.

Secondly, the focus shifted to the creation of a new police service, with Lakusta emphasizing the opportunity to shape a positive culture from scratch. Redl and Bourke both underscored the uniqueness of the endeavour, with Redl affirming his full confidence in its success and Bourke emphasizing the honour of contributing to its foundation.

The last theme centred on the nurturing of a positive team culture. Lefebvre and Graham stressed the opportunity to cultivate a supportive environment, particularly focusing on mental health and training.

Tunke concluded with, “We already have a great foundation. I believe in our leadership team. It’s already such a great place to work. Anyone who joins us now will be pivotal in helping establish and mould this beautiful service. For me, it’s already a dream come true—it’s better than I could’ve imagined. I’m so honoured to be a part of it.”