The RCMP’s union has moved to stifle the Alberta government’s efforts to establish its own provincial police force by sneakily trademarking several potential names.
Online trademark records from February reveal that the National Police Federation has moved to trademark “Alberta Police Department,” “Alberta Provincial Police,” “Alberta Police Service,” and “Alberta Provincial Police Service” — all of which are the most obvious and descriptive potential names such a force would use.
National Police Service president Brian Sauvé says that this move was made because he does not believe Albertans want their own police service and are satisfied with the RCMP. This belief is in opposition to a survey that shows that 79 per cent of Calgary residents are favourable towards local police forces, suggesting that many may favour a more province-centric service
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Similarly, a Nanos poll found that 46 per cent of Albertans were in favour of a provincial police force, while 39 per cent say they are somewhat opposed and would like to keep the RCMP, and 16 per cent said they were unsure.
Conversely, Keep Alberta RCMP reports a survey conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights which found that 81 per cent of Albertans are satisfied with services provided by the RCMP.
Sauvé says that he does not want to make it “easy for Premier Kenney to proceed unchallenged along the path of this politically-motivated proposal to replace the RCMP with a new provincial police service.” Still, University of Alberta law professor Cameron Hutchison does not believe Sauvé’s trademarking scheme offers much resistance, and the union is unlikely to receive the trademarks.
According to Hutchison, words like “police” are simply descriptors that cannot be trademarked, as this would make it impossible to accurately describe institutions or products that serve a specific function.
“Normally, you have competitors and people who want to use the same word for their products. We have Pears soap or Dove soap, right? We don’t want to allow trademarks over (the word) soap because then nobody else can use them,” explains Hutchison.
Moreover, Hutchison says that the union itself is not an actual police force which would further disqualify it from obtaining the rights to something like “Alberta Police Service.”
“So, either one of those would be a bar to getting a trademark, and I don’t see how they clear that hurdle,” Hutchison said.
According to Hutchison, the entire fiasco appears to be nothing but a PR move and that should the RCMP succeed, the province could simply take them to court where they would inevitably win, as Alberta has special authority over such names — plus, the union would not be using them.
“I mean, they would have to go to federal court to do that,” explains Hutchison, “but once they got there, it wouldn’t be difficult to do. It’s not a grey legal question or anything it’s pretty open and shut.”
