City of Edmonton peace officers may be handing out tickets this season to people found not wearing life-jackets while in a recreation vessel on the North Saskatchewan River \u2014 one year after the city made the rule mandatory.<\/p>\n
Last year, Edmonton park rangers gave out 15 per cent more warnings to people breaking safety rules on and around the river within city limits than they did the year before, according to a memo to city council earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Under the city\u2019s public spaces bylaw, peace officers issued 3,460 warnings to river users in 2025 up from the 3,006 in 2024.<\/p>\n
More than 40 per cent of the warnings in 2025 \u20141,464 incidents \u2014 were given to people not wearing life-jackets or personal floatation devices (PFD), the city says.<\/p>\n
One reason for the increase: the city revised its public spaces bylaw last May and included the requirement for people to wear a life-jacket or PFD while in, on or attached to a floating vessel.<\/p>\n
Other infractions resulting in warnings included: having open liquor on a vessel, not having a sound signalling device, not having a boat licence and absence of a manual propelling device on board.<\/p>\n
Zain Haji, a peace officer with the city\u2019s park ranger marine unit, said they started considering the change a couple of years ago based on a trend of more people on the North Saskatchewan River.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the amount of rescues that we were also conducting, people consuming liquor,\u201d Haji said in an interview with CBC News last week.<\/p>\n
Haji noted that Edmonton is following Calgary’s example, where life-jackets have been required on city bodies of water and on the Elbow River since 1979.<\/p>\n
The city’s park rangers took a proactive, educational approach last year, launching from Capilano and Laurier Parks and patrolling the 74-kilometre stretch of river, Haji said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLetting people know that not only do you have to have [a life-jacket] on your vessel, you have to be wearing it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Transport Canada regulations require a life-jacket or PFD for each person on board a recreational vessel but occupants aren\u2019t required to wear them.<\/p>\n
Last year, park rangers conducted 10,842 inspections. He said most people not wearing life-jackets were in kayaks, canoes, dinghies, floating islands and paddle boards.<\/p>\n
This year, peace officers will consider giving the $250 ticket, especially to repeat offenders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s something that we would have to discuss with our management and what are and how our trends are going but I do see the level of enforcement increasing,\u201d Haji said.<\/p>\n
Patrons on the Edmonton Riverboat or those participating in canoe, kayak and rowing races are not required to wear life-jackets, the bylaw says.<\/p>\n
Search and rescue<\/p>\n
The marine unit responded to 21 search and rescue incidents on the North Saskatchewan River in 2025, up 24 per cent from 17 in 2024 and nearly double from 2022.<\/p>\n
Haji said river users sometimes aren\u2019t prepared for an abrupt change in weather and get stranded on hillsides or islands along the river. At that time, the team takes the individuals to safety.<\/p>\n
The marine unit\u2019s rescue cases are separate from calls to the Edmonton Fire Rescue Services. The fire department went to 57 events in 2025, up from 48 in 2024.<\/p>\n
Anne Stevenson, Ward O-day\u2019min city councillor, said adapting to new rules is a challenge for some.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think about when seatbelts were first introduced … met with a lot of resistance, whereas now we don’t even think about it,\u201d Stevenson said earlier this month. \u201cI hope that’s where we get to with life-jackets as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lifesaving Society Alberta and Northwest Territories branch welcomed Edmonton\u2019s revised bylaw.<\/p>\n
Madison Lalonde, the interim managing director for Lifesaving Society, said rivers have more risk factors, like currents and underwater entrapment hazards.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if you’re a really strong swimmer, your clothing, your limbs can get stuck in those areas,\u201d Lalonde said in an interview last month. \u201cIt’s so important to wear a life-jacket to help lift you up out of the water, regardless of how strong of a swimmer you are or what training you have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City of Edmonton peace officers may be handing out tickets this season to people found not wearing life-jackets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3557,52,12145,12143,12144,12146,12147],"class_list":["post-24540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-city-of-edmonton","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-riverboat","tag-north-saskatchewan-river","tag-park-rangers","tag-peace-officers","tag-zain-haji"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}