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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCalgary police Chief Const. Katie McLellan poses for a photo, in Calgary, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Bill Graveland<\/p>\n
McLellan is also looking for a $191.9 million in capital spending over the four-year period, a 73 per cent increase compared with the previous budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we could ask for more of a budget increase we would, but we\u2019ve taken a responsible, disciplined approach to ensure we can actually deliver on our ask,\u201d McLellan told a Thursday news conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe moved forward with only the highest priority positions and line items that would impact public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
The chief said Calgary is already falling behind as it deals with population growth, an increase in shootings, fatal collisions and more mental health and addiction calls.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are not issues we will arrest our way out of,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
McLellan said the increased workload means fewer officers available for low-priority in-person incidents, less community policing and engagement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to paint a bleak picture but if this budget proposal is not fully funded there will be major impacts to Calgarians\u2019 safety and perception of safety,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficer response will be limited further than it currently is, which will worsen public safety outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
She earlier said the job takes a toll on front line officers. About 13 per cent of officers have been reassigned to different duties within the service while six per cent are not at work at all for reasons including medical leave.<\/p>\n
Calgary city council will discuss the budget in coming weeks. McLellan said the numbers she is asking for would ideally be much higher.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe probably actually need double the number of police officers we\u2019re asking for, and it\u2019s going to take the service and the city probably two budget cycles to get to where we actually need to be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 29, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALGARY \u2013 Calgary\u2019s police chief is asking for a sizable jump in the service\u2019s budget over the next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":951130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":["post-951129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951129","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=951129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}