A Calgary criminologist says Alberta's plan to make all police services in the province use body cameras could come with prohibitive costs and take a long time to put in place.Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis announced the plan Tuesday and said it would provide both officers and the public with protection, as well as transparency when police are required to make split-second decisions.Alberta will be working with the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police on funding, logistics and when the cameras will roll out.However, Doug King, a justice studies professor at Mount Royal University, says a

The Alberta and federal governments say they will work together to understand what happened around public notifications of toxic seepage at an oilsands tailings pond.Alberta environment minister Sonya Savage and her federal counterpart Steven Guilbeault discussed on Tuesday night the seepage and leak from the Kearl oilsands mine.The seepage was discovered in May, but neither politician was told about it until nine months later.Area First Nations were also not updated after initial notification of discoloured water being found on the site, about 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta.Savage

Alberta plans to require all police services in the province to use body cameras.Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis says officers often respond to calls that are complex and make split-second decisions.He says that can raise concerns from the public about actions that have been taken and whether appropriate force was used.Ellis says the decision is transformational and would ensure all interactions with officers are objective in both large cities and smaller rural communities.He says Alberta would be the first province to mandate body cameras.The government will work with the Alberta Associatio

The Alberta government has started a second campaign aimed at attracting more skilled workers from Ontario and Atlantic Canada. Alberta Jobs Minister Brian Jean says the Alberta is Calling program is piggybacking on a similar effort announced by the government last summer. The initial campaign targeted Canadians living in Toronto and Vancouver, while this time it focuses on those living in the Maritimes and parts of Ontario, including London, Hamilton, Windsor and Sudbury. Jean says there are 100,000 vacancies for skilled workers in Alberta which has the highest wages in Canada. Jennifer Hensh

Alberta has introduced legislation that would require it to keep a tight rein on spending and continue to pay down its debt.Finance Minister Travis Toews says Bill 10 proposes a new fiscal framework that mandates balanced budgets, limits expense increases and set policies for surplus cash.It would also enable the United Conservative Party government to keep all investment income within the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund.Toews says if all the earnings from the fund had been kept in it over the years, it would now be worth 300-billion dollars.The legislation would also tie future municipal

The Alberta government is promising $92 million in funding for youth mental health. Premier Danielle Smith says the spending over three years would provide critical mental health support for children and youth across Alberta in partnership with CASA Mental Health. The United Conservative Party-led government says the money would fund two new in-patient CASA House sites in Fort McMurray and Calgary. Nicholas Milliken, who is minister of mental health and addiction, says the funding would help more than 700 additional youth in Alberta every year and would reduce the need for hospital

Alberta's top court has increased the sentence of a former club promoter convicted of sexually assaulting several women to 11 years. Matthew McKnight was sentenced to eight years after he was convicted in 2020 of assaulting five women in Edmonton between 2010 and 2016. The Crown asked last month that the Court of Appeal give McKnight a sentence of 15 years, arguing the assaults were premeditated. The Crown had originally asked at trial that McKnight serve 22 1/2 years. Court heard that McKnight offered alcohol to his victims, who were between the ages of 18 and 22, then assaulted them at his d

The Alberta government is pledging more than $27 million in its upcoming budget to help Ukrainians resettle in the province one year after Russia invaded the eastern European country.Rajan Sawhney, minister of trade, immigration and multiculturalism, says the United Conservative government is to continue to support Ukrainian newcomers as the crisis enters its second year.Sawhney says the Alberta government would provide $7 million over the next three years for settlement and language programs as a part of the 2023 budget.The Ministry of Seniors, Community and Social Services would also provide

The Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police says it believes, based on research it commissioned, that it would be "incredibly premature" to think about decriminalizing drugs.Instead, it says there must be a systemic and ordered approach in place that prioritizes community safety before such a strategy can be considered.A paper, commissioned by the association and released at a recovery conference in Calgary, says problematic use of substances is a complex social issue that needs more than one solution.The research, led by the Community Safety Knowledge Alliance, says the idea of decriminalizin