Saskatoon police miss targets for workplace diversity

The Saskatoon Police Service didn’t meet its workplace diversity targets in 2019, according to a report presented to the board of police commissioners on Thursday.

The police service bases its workplace equity targets on the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission’s 2019 Targets for a Representative Workforce. In 2019, Saskatoon police aimed to have a workplace with 47 per cent women, 14 per cent Indigenous peoples, 16.8 per cent visible minorities and 22.2 per cent people with disabilities.

The police service reported its 2019 actuals were 43.7 per cent women, 10.1 per cent Indigenous peoples, 5.7 per cent visible minorities and 5.6 per cent people with disabilities. It had 11 more women and one more Indigenous officer than in 2019, but lost one employee with a disability.

Last year, 204 members identified as female, 66 identified as Indigenous, 35 identified as a person with a disability and 28 identified as a visible minority. The police force had 585 sworn and out of scope positions in 2019.

The report, written by the police force’s executive director of corporate strategy, Clae Hack, noted that the number of people who identify as being part of one of the four diversity groups has more than doubled since 2002, when there were 80 female staff, 120 Indigenous staff, seven visible minority employees and 12 with disabilities.

“There’s been significant progress made over the last 15 years and we continue to edge closer each and every year, but we do recognize that more work needs to be done,” Hack told the police board.

In 2019, the turnover rate of Indigenous members jumped to about 7.5 per cent after two years. Hack said six or seven Indigenous officers left the force, mainly through retirement.

He said nothing really “raised alarm,” so he expects the rate to return to normal in 2020, but if it doesn’t the force will have to look closer.

Chief Troy Cooper said the police force’s recruitment challenges are the same as any employer trying to attract people who aren’t traditionally in that role.

Women, for example, weren’t involved in policing until the 1970s, and are one of the targets of police recruitment drives, he said.

There’s a real benefit to having a diverse workforce, Cooper said.

“We know that we deal with really complicated social issues and we need to have diversity in our approaches to dealing with those issues, and we can only get that when we bring into our organization people from different backgrounds and different experiences.”