Standing before a brand-new city council to pitch a budget bump in excess of $50 million wasn’t so big an ask, Calgary’s relatively new top cop says.
Chief Constable Katie McLellan smiles when she adds the next one will be bigger.
The Calgary Police Service (CPS) is getting new dollars to put into use in 2026.
“Some of it’s for support positions, disclosure folks to comply with legislation, back-to-work folks,” she said.
“Some money for our fleet budget and our HAWCS helicopter budget.”
“And of course some maintenance—I don’t think people realize we’ve actually got 41 buildings,” she said.
“And there was some tweaking just around some budget things, reserves and so forth.”
McLellan calls it “a fairly small ask in the big scheme of things.”
She says it’s also “kind of planting some seeds.”
“For what next year’s going to look like, because next year will be a bigger ask,” she said.
Money to the tune of $7.5 million is also going toward efforts to curb pedestrian collisions in Calgary.
Looking to break a deadly pattern on roads
At the time of this writing, Calgary has seen 38 fatal collisions on its roads in 2026, 15 of which involved pedestrian deaths.
A decade-high for traffic fatalities was broken well before those numbers were reached.
McLellan says the majority of the city’s traffic fatalities come down to “speed, distracted driving and impairment.”
“A lot of that money will go to education, to awareness,” she said.
“We’re a city that’s going to be 1.6 million people real quick, and we’ll be surpassing two million in the next several years.”
“With that comes a lot of new drivers, a lot of vehicles on the road,” she said.
“We’ll be working with all of (the service’s) partners to see how we can prevent those collisions.”
Another priority carrying over from 2025 into 2026 is safety in Calgary’s downtown core.
Redirecting focus onto downtown safety
Early November saw a one-day blitz with more than 100 people in and out of uniform engaging with individuals in several downtown and downtown-adjacent areas.
The stated goal was to connect those individuals with supports and stop criminal activity.
Of more than 200 calls attended that day:
- 25 individuals received a total of 40 charges;
- 220 warrants were executed;
- 217 proactive community engagements were made;
- 115 social agency referrals were given;
- eight InfoPosts were completed; and
- 25 encampments were attended, six of which were cleaned up.
“It’s heartbreaking, the individuals who are down there who are homeless, who have mental-health and addiction issues,” she said.
“We’ve tried some different things, and we’ve had some impacts.”
At the time, CPS said the effort caused “a decreased presence of problem behaviours and high system users throughout downtown.”
McLellan says it’s necessary.
“We’re starting to see an increase in street robberies and assaults—a 20 per cent increase, in fact, in the downtown core,” she said.
“I’ve been very clear—we cannot let this city get like other cities, where people are afraid to go into certain areas.”
“We will continue to do (blitzes),” she said.
“We have redeployed some resources in the downtown core, so it’s not just a one-off.”
Unexpectedly inheriting a police force
It’s been eight months since McLellan was announced as Calgary’s top cop.
Previous position holder Mark Neufeld resigned unexpectedly and without a reason given in early May, and McLellan was installed into the chief constable’s office.
McLellan joined CPS in 1987.
She says she’s spent a lot of her early months building connections within the police force she’s inherited.
“My team and I are doing our best to engage with as many members across the service (as possible),” McLellan said.
“If I could get to know all 3,222, that would be a miracle, but we are doing our best to engage.”
McLellan says people are optimistic.
She says they’re committed.
And she says they’re loyal to their city and its citizens.
“There are incredible members in the service who do incredible things every day,” McLellan said.
With files from CTV’s Jefferson Humphreys
