Alberta emergency services agencies pushing for more Indigenous recruits

Adding representation to those who protect and serve.

The Blood Tribe Police Service is working with other emergency service agencies across the province, trying to add more Indigenous recruits into their ranks.

“There’s a lack of Indigenous applicants coming in and that makes a lack of Indigenous police officers,” said Blood Tribe police chief Brice Iron Shirt.

Last week, local police hosted a recruiting drive on the Blood Tribe, hoping to improve access for prospective members.

Iron Shirt believes the early returns look promising.

“(It’s) our first attempt at seeing if this can even be a success or not,” Iron Shirt said. “What we’ve seen is there is a lot of opportunity for us to start recruiting, even within the Blood Tribe.”

Other organizations, including both Lethbridge and Calgary police, as well as RCMP also participated.

According to LPS Cst. Allister Koop, trying to increase diversity on the city’s force isn’t a new iniative.

“That’s been in our strategic planning for a long time,” Koop said.

“We want to reflect the community we serve and this is a part of that, so these efforts have kind of renewed over the last year.”

Koop adds the service doesn’t ask applicants or members about their ethnicity or gender.

“They can self-identify if they want to or not, so we don’t have specific stats on that,” Koop said.

But he believes there are encouraging signs for the future.

“What I can say is we have seen an uptake in diverse – either hiring or interest – in the Watch program and (community peace officer) programs and both those programs are great feeders into policing. We’re hoping to see those feed into policing in the next couple of years.”

Iron Shirt believes increasing that uptake across law enforcement may reduce the disproportionate number of Indigenous people behind bars.

“Getting as many Indigenous into policing should help in that area, be it through crime prevention programs that are specific to Indigenous people or being more engaged with Indigenous people,” Iron Shirt said.

Blood Tribe police are currently working on a program with Red Crow College to help Indigenous members with the application process. That’s expected to be ready by this fall.