SEATTLE - There were the inevitable questions when two constables from Canada came to Seattle this week to a job fair, recruiting for the Edmonton Police Service.
With jobs scarce in the northwestern United States, and with Edmonton paying officers a starting salary of $50,000 (Canadian) a year (about $48,800 U.S.), reaching $75,000 (Canadian) after five years, there was natural interest.
One of the frequently asked questions for the constables at Jobbernaut, held Wednesday at Qwest Field: Where is Edmonton?
"I thought it was somewhere near Edmonds," Wash., said one prospective applicant, Robert Niles-Clewis, 21. "When they told me it was located in Canada, it caught me by surprise."
Edmonton police were in Seattle in July for a job fair, and people kept getting their city mixed up with Edmonds, the suburb north of Seattle.
This time around, their booth displayed a large photo mural showing two Edmonton constables prominently wearing Canadian maple-leaf flag insignia.
"I tell them it's just north of Montana," said Constable Keane Block, "constable" being what cops are called in Canada, what with the British influence.
That helped a lot. Washington, Idaho, Montana ... oh, right.
"And I tell them it has the world's largest shopping mall, West Edmonton Mall," added Block.
That helps, too. Somewhere in the recesses of our consumer minds, we've heard of that megamall.
(Though it's not the world's largest shopping mall, but North America's largest, covering the equivalent of 48 city blocks with over 800 stores. The largest in the world, according to forbes.com, is the South China Mall in Dongguan, China.)
Here is another question posed often: Doesn't it, you know, get really cold in Edmonton?
In nine of the 12 months of the year, according to Intellicast, Edmonton has measurable snow. In September, it's only three-quarters of an inch. But isn't September still technically part of summer? By the time November rolls around, and through to February, the average high temperature is never above freezing.
One man at the job fair, when thinking about these weather matters, simply returned the color brochures with headlines such as: "Up Where You Belong."
Constable Block didn't deny the weather reports. "But it's also very sunny. We get over 2,000 hours of sunlight a year," he said.
Another question: Is Edmonton really that short of cops?
It is, thanks to the booming economy in Alberta.
Edmonton, a city of a million people, is thriving because of an oil-and-gas boom in its province (that would be Alberta), and, unlike cash-strapped cities like Seattle, it actually can afford to add city services. It has around 1,400 constables and plans to add 170 more each year for the next few years.
The boom also means there are plenty of other jobs available.
"The Alberta economy is so big that right now, people can make money doing carpentry and working in the oil industry. A starting electrician makes more money than a starting police officer," Staff Sgt. Gary Godziuk, of the Human Resources Division, said by phone from Edmonton.
(E-mail reporter Erik Lacitis at elacitis(at)seattletimes.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com)
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