Staff Sgt. Michael Courty, seen here on Aug. 29, was formally named detachment commander of the Redcliff RCMP in July. (Photo Courtesy Bob Schneider)

By Chris Brown

‘Their priorities are our priorities’: new Redcliff RCMP commander wants to improve community engagement

Aug 29, 2022 | 3:48 PM

REDCLIFF, AB – In January, Sgt. Michael Courty was named the acting detachment commander of the Redcliff RCMP. About a month ago the “acting” tag was removed and Courty was formally promoted to staff sergeant and detachment commander.

He has no doubt where he wants to take the detachment.

“Over the last three years, the pandemic, there’s not been that face-to-face interactions with our partners, our community at large and I would like to see us getting back into that because that’s where we get our ideas from,” he says.

“We work for the community, so their priorities are our priorities.”

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He says they want to be back into schools, attending more community events and get citizen advisory groups back up and running.

Courty says he’s always enjoyed interacting with the public – he volunteers with South East Alberta Search and Rescue and Canadian Ski Patrol – and the community engagement that comes with his job.

The new top cop says overall crime statistics in the detachment’s coverage area dropped during the pandemic. He says with the world returning to its normal state, so are crime trends. The largest volume of calls Redcliff RCMP gets is for property crimes and traffic enforcement, which are on the rise.

He wants to keep the numbers low and says Redcliff is working with partner agencies to that end.

“We have the Medicine Hat ALERT property crimes unit that we work with a lot as well as our Southern Alberta District rural crime unit,” Courty says. “We work with them very closely to identify suspects that could be operating throughout southern Alberta and the province and it’s proven very good.”

Courty joined Redcliff RCMP to head the traffic unit in 2018 after five years with Brooks RCMP. Before that, he was with the Ontario Provincial Police for 12.5 years.