John Middleton-Hope in front of the Community Mosaic at the Galt Museum & Archives in Lethbridge. (Photo: Lethbridge News Now)

By Connor Gunn

Lethbridge councillor-elect John Middleton-Hope excited for future in the city

Oct 22, 2021 | 6:00 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – A former Lethbridge Police chief will be joining Lethbridge City council for the next four years.

In the unofficial results from Monday’s municipal election, John Middleton-Hope received 6.09% of the vote enough to secure him a council seat.

He believes his experiences working in various leadership roles will be valuable to city council. On why he decided to run for election, Middleton-Hope noted that he’s lived in Lethbridge for close to 20 years and is “well aware of city council and their functions.”

Middleton-Hope served as LPS’ chief from 2002 to 2006, after serving many years with the Calgary Police Service. He also has years of teaching experience at both Mount Royal University and the University of Calgary.

With a family history steeped in policing, Middleton-Hope’s first priority for Lethbridge is to improve public safety.

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He said, “I think what we as a community have to reconcile is where do we want to go? What do we want to do in the future? Where do we see our city of 100-plus thousand population, where do we see it when it hits 200,000? How are we going to get there? I think that, based on my experience, based on both in policing, in academia as well as in consulting, as well as working for the United Nations, I can [contribute] to the discussion around public safety.”

Middleton-Hope says he believes his stance on public safety was clear right from the start and it stuck with voters saying he wants to see Lethbridge become a safer city.

He stated that public safety is “not just a police problem,” but it’s something the entire community has to work on together to improve.

“For me, public safety is job one. Secondly, leadership skills and abilities brought to city council to lend my experience and to lend my skillsets to city council to help us move forward.”

He finished by saying he’s excited for the opportunity to sit on council with the new group of councillors.

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