Edmonton civic leaders are trading barbs over a controversial visit to Israel by the city\u2019s chief of police, with Mayor Andrew Knack slamming the trip and a rival councillor pointing to Knack\u2019s own travel to countries with poor human rights records.<\/p>\n
Police Chief Warren Driechel\u2019s February trip to Israel, where he met with police leaders, erupted onto the municipal political scene Friday afternoon when Knack and three councillors issued statements on the move.<\/p>\n
Knack, Coun. Erin Rutherford and Coun. Ashley Salvador blasted Driechel\u2019s decision, with the mayor saying he was \u201cdeeply disappointed and frustrated\u201d with Driechel and the police commission chair Ben Henderson for approving the trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many Edmontonians, the violence in the West Bank and Gaza is not distant,\u201d Knack wrote in a statement. \u201cFamilies in our community are grieving and are worried about loved ones who are living among unimaginable hardships. Decisions like these cause real hurt, damage relationships with communities that already feel marginalized, and break trust.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time of rising Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, anti-semitism, and hate towards marginalized communities, the choice to make this trip is harmful and further alienates members of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Knack said he\u2019s asked the commission to review its travel policies \u201cparticularly given the active travel advisories and sanctions in place,\u201d and said he expects both police and commission \u201cto meaningfully connect with our community to repair where trust has been broken so that all Edmontonians feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coun. Michael Elliott, an Edmonton police service staff sergeant until his election last year, defended the chief and called out \u201cinconsistency in how international engagement is judged.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Elliott didn\u2019t specifically reference the trip , Knack in January travelled to China<\/a>, whose persecution of Muslim minorities has been characterized as genocide<\/a>\u00a0including by Canada\u2019s House of Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Jewish Federation of Edmonton, meanwhile, condemned criticism of Driechel\u2019s trip, stating \u201cit\u2019s a fact that antisemitic extremism leverages ansi-Israel activism as a platform to justify violence.\u201d<\/p>\n Council issued their statements a day after the National Council of Canadian Muslims and two-dozen local Muslim groups said Driechel should answer questions about the trip or resign.<\/p>\n Driechel was part of a delegation from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which funded the trip. Police said the visit was \u201ceducational\u201d and that Driechel gained insights \u201cinto local policing in a highly complex environment, including critical incident response, threat preparedness, and community engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n More to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n jwakefield@postmedia.com<\/p>\n x.com\/jonnywakefield <\/p>\n @jonnywakefield.bsky.social<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edmonton civic leaders are trading barbs over a controversial visit to Israel by the city\u2019s chief of police,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[99354,209796,49,48,93273,23752,194336,1258,209797,209795,209505],"class_list":["post-536281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-andrew-knack","tag-ben-henderson","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-david-bloom","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-police","tag-israel","tag-marginalized-communities","tag-police-chief-warren-driechel","tag-warren-driechel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}