Alberta’s Police Amendment Act, 2022 restructures police oversight under the Police Act. It establishes the Police Review Commission as the central intake and assessment body for complaints, creates a five-level complaint classification system, and assigns different investigation and review pathways based on seriousness.
The Act also changes how municipalities and police commissions are governed. It gives the Minister greater influence over commission appointments, creates a Provincial Police Advisory Board, requires new policing plans and reporting, and provides a framework for independent or integrated investigations of serious incidents.
The changes extend into peace officer investigations and police labour relations.
At a Glance
What It Does
The Act establishes the Police Review Commission and requires complaints received by police chiefs, commissions, or policing committees to be forwarded to it, generally within 30 days. The Commission classifies complaints from Level 1, involving death or serious injury or another serious or sensitive matter, through Level 5, involving police policies or services, and assigns the applicable process.
Who It Affects
Police services, police chiefs, police commissions, municipal and regional policing committees, complainants, and officers who are the subject of complaints face new procedures and reporting duties. Municipalities using the RCMP must establish policing committees once they meet the population thresholds in the Act, while peace officer employers must use the new serious-incident investigation framework.
Why It Matters
The Act separates complaint intake and serious-incident oversight from the police service that may be the subject of the complaint. It also combines more independent review with stronger ministerial influence over police governance, creating a new accountability structure whose practical details depend heavily on regulations and agreements with the RCMP.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The Act’s central change is the creation of the Police Review Commission. Complaints may still be received by a chief of police, a commission, or a municipal or regional policing committee, but those bodies must forward them to the Commission as soon as practicable and no later than 30 days after receipt.
The Commission must acknowledge receipt within two business days and notify the relevant police leadership and commission. It then decides whether the complaint concerns a serious incident, a possible offence, police discipline, officer performance, or police policies and services.
The classification determines who investigates and what remedies are available. Level 1 matters can involve death, serious injury, or another serious or sensitive issue and may be assigned to another police service, monitored by public overseers, or sent to an integrated investigative unit.
Level 2 complaints allege criminal or statutory offences; the Commission’s chief executive officer decides whether to handle them as Level 1 or Level 3 matters. Level 3 complaints concern possible disciplinary breaches and receive a Commission-administered investigation.
Level 4 complaints about unsatisfactory officer performance generally remain with the police service’s internal performance process, while Level 5 complaints about police policies or services are sent to the relevant police service for administration.The Act sets procedural protections around those classifications. The Commission must notify complainants of assessment results, and certain dismissal decisions can be reviewed by the Alberta Police Review Board within 30 days.
Level 2 and Level 3 complaints generally cannot be made more than one year after the conduct occurred or the complainant knew, or ought to have known, about it, although regulations may permit extensions. Complainants must receive periodic progress updates: at least every 45 days for certain serious investigations and every 60 days for Level 3 investigations.The legislation also changes the institutional architecture around policing.
It creates a Provincial Police Advisory Board and requires municipal or regional policing committees for municipalities using RCMP services, subject to population and regional-governance criteria. Police commissions must include minister-appointed members within specified numerical limits, and the minister controls the removal of those appointees.
Police commissions must establish service priorities, report on implementation, develop community safety plans, and create diversity and inclusion plans with police services.Finally, the Act gives the minister tools to resolve disputes involving police services, councils, commissions, and policing committees, including investigations, mediation, and binding directions. It authorizes an integrated investigative unit for police and peace officer matters, modifies collective bargaining rules for Level 4 complaints, permits electronic service of documents, and preserves the former regime for complaints whose investigations began before the new provisions come into force.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Police Review Commission must acknowledge a complaint within two business days after receiving or receiving a forwarded complaint and must notify the relevant police leadership or commission.
A Level 1 complaint can trigger an investigation by another police service, public oversight of an investigation, or a direction to an integrated investigative unit. The Commission’s chief executive officer must notify the minister within 24 hours after receiving notice of the underlying incident or complaint.
The Commission can dismiss Level 2 and Level 3 complaints filed more than one year after the conduct occurred or after the complainant knew, or ought to have known, about it, subject to regulatory extensions.
Municipalities using the RCMP with populations above 15,000 must establish municipal policing committees. Municipalities at or below 15,000 generally fall within regional policing committees, although municipalities with populations of at least 5,000 may establish municipal committees with ministerial approval.
The minister may appoint members to regional and municipal police commissions, but minister-appointed members must remain less than half of the total commission membership. The minister alone may revoke those appointments.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Preamble, definitions, and policing principles
The Act adds a preamble recognizing public safety, Charter and human rights protections, community cooperation, Indigenous histories and cultures, diversity, accountability, and transparent complaint processes. It also adds guiding principles directing police services to consider health-related conditions and to promote a culture of accountability.
These provisions are primarily interpretive rather than operational. They give the rest of the Act a stated framework for evaluating policing standards, training, community engagement, and complaint administration.
Ministerial direction and oversight administration
The amendments update references to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General, expand the minister’s ability to establish provincial policing priorities, and align reporting periods with the fiscal year. They also give the Law Enforcement Review Board authority to review decisions of the Police Review Commission or its chief executive officer, generally on the existing record and without a hearing.
The Board may conduct business electronically and may direct the Commission to lay a disciplinary charge or investigate a matter again. The changes replace older references to commissions and police chiefs with the new Commission-centered structure.
Police commissions and advisory committees
The Act changes the composition of regional and municipal police commissions. The minister may appoint a capped number of members and may add members when necessary, provided minister-appointed members remain less than half of the total. Minister-appointed members may serve terms of up to three years, and only the minister may revoke their appointments.
The Act also establishes a Provincial Police Advisory Board of up to 15 minister-appointed members. Its membership must include at least one First Nations nominee and at least one nominee from a Métis settlement or community. Municipalities using RCMP services must establish municipal or regional policing committees based on population and regional-governance rules, with their powers and duties largely left to regulations.
Police-service planning and ministerial dispute powers
The minister may intervene when a police service, commission, policing committee, or council disagrees about the provision or maintenance of policing services. The minister may investigate, appoint a mediator, or issue a decision directing one or more parties to act.
Police commissions must establish service priorities, report them to the minister within 30 days, report annually on implementation, develop community safety plans with police services, and develop diversity and inclusion plans. Chiefs of police must report certain policy and service complaints to both the commission and the Police Review Commission.
Police Review Commission and complaint classification
The Act creates the Police Review Commission, led by a chief executive officer and registrar appointed by the minister. The Commission becomes the central intake and assessment authority for complaints, replacing the previous model in which chiefs, commissions, and complaint directors handled different stages of the process.
The Commission must classify complaints into five levels. Levels 1 through 3 cover serious incidents, possible offences, and possible disciplinary breaches; Level 4 covers officer performance; and Level 5 covers police policies or services. Each category has a different investigator, reporting obligation, review route, and potential hearing process. Complaints against RCMP members ordinarily remain subject to the RCMP complaint regime unless the RCMP agrees that the Alberta Commission will assess and administer them.
Serious incidents, integrated investigations, and disciplinary hearings
For Level 1 matters, the Commission’s chief executive officer can assign the investigation to another police service, appoint public overseers, or direct an integrated investigative unit to take over an investigation. The police service or unit must provide reports, and complainants must receive status updates at least every 45 days. Investigation costs generally fall on the police service under investigation, while the government pays for appointed public overseers.
For Level 3 complaints, the Commission directs the investigation and may use officers from another police service. If the evidence supports a disciplinary breach, a presiding officer selected from a Commission roster conducts the hearing. The presiding officer may dismiss the matter or take action authorized by regulation, and must provide written findings and appeal information to the relevant parties.
Related statutes, transition, and implementation rules
The Act amends the Peace Officer Act so the integrated investigative unit can investigate serious incidents involving peace officers. It also excludes Level 4 performance matters from certain police collective-bargaining dispute provisions, allowing those issues to remain within performance-management and employment frameworks.
Complaints already under investigation when the new provisions commence continue under the former Act. The legislation gives the Lieutenant Governor in Council broad regulation-making powers over complaint intake, investigations, hearings, committee membership, training, information sharing, time extensions, and the Commission’s internal procedures.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on this topic across all five countries.
Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Members of the public who make police complaints benefit from a single intake structure, required acknowledgements, classification notices, periodic progress updates, and specified review or appeal rights.
- Complainants in serious-incident cases gain access to potential independent investigations, public overseers, and integrated investigative units rather than relying exclusively on the police service involved.
- Police commissions and municipalities receive a clearer statutory framework for service priorities, community safety planning, diversity and inclusion planning, and committee-based oversight of RCMP policing arrangements.
- Indigenous communities gain designated representation on the Provincial Police Advisory Board and a statutory principle requiring policing to recognize First Nations, Inuit, and Métis histories and cultures.
- Peace officer accountability processes gain a defined route for serious incidents through the integrated investigative unit, including cases involving death, serious injury, or sensitive conduct.
Who Bears the Cost
- Police services must forward complaints within 30 days, cooperate with Commission-directed investigations, provide recurring status reports, and potentially pay the costs of investigations conducted by another police service or integrated unit.
- Municipalities using RCMP services must establish and support municipal or regional policing committees once the statutory population and geographic conditions apply, including potential remuneration and administrative costs for committee members.
- Police commissions and police chiefs face additional planning, reporting, complaint-escalation, and information-sharing obligations, with less control over serious or disciplinary complaints under the centralized model.
- The Police Review Commission and the Alberta government must build the administrative, staffing, investigative, oversight, and presiding-officer infrastructure needed to operate the new system. The government pays for public overseers appointed in serious-incident cases.
- Police officers face a more formal external complaint process, including Commission-directed investigations, disciplinary hearings before rostered presiding officers, and possible appeals or reviews outside their own police service.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The Act seeks more independent and consistent police accountability while preserving substantial ministerial control over the institutions that oversee policing. Centralizing complaints can reduce conflicts of interest and improve public confidence, but the system’s legitimacy will depend on whether appointment powers, delegated regulations, funding decisions, and complaint classifications produce oversight that is genuinely independent as well as administratively efficient.
The Act’s independence model is not complete separation from government. The minister appoints the Commission’s chief executive officer, registrar, advisory board members, and some police commission members, and the minister can intervene in disputes involving local policing institutions.
That arrangement may make province-wide coordination easier, but it leaves an unresolved question about how much practical independence the new oversight bodies will have from the executive government.
The five-level classification system creates useful triage, but its boundaries will matter. The difference between officer performance, disciplinary misconduct, policy failures, and a serious or sensitive matter can determine whether a complaint receives an internal process, an external investigation, a hearing, or a referral to prosecutors.
Many of the operating rules are delegated to regulations, including committee powers, training, information sharing, serious-incident definitions, and extensions of complaint deadlines.
The Act also creates cost and jurisdiction questions. Police services can be required to fund investigations led by another service, while the Commission can involve the RCMP or an out-of-province police service only within the limits of existing agreements and applicable federal regimes.
The transition rule protects ongoing investigations from procedural disruption, but it also means that complaints arising at the same time may proceed under materially different systems.
There's more to this law than the bill.
Codify Laws traces every connection across the legislative lifecycle.