Province launches team to combat rural crime
Government playing ‘shell game’, overburdening police: opposition
Justice Minister Gord Wyant announced a $5.9-million investment aimed at reducing rural crime on Tuesday. The new provincial Protection and Response Team (PRT) — launched after a review of rural crime by a caucus committee on crime reduction — will be made up of 258 armed officers across Saskatchewan.
However, with the re-purposing and expansion of existing police duties central to the plan, the opposition suggested the government is playing a “shell game” with money that could be used elsewhere, while overburdening already stretched police.
Some 120 members of the new team will be RCMP and municipal police officers — including 60 presently working with Combined Traffic Services Saskatchewan, and another 30 police roles that will be re-purposed. Highway commercial vehicle enforcement officers will make up another 40, and 98 will be Ministry of Environment conservation officers.
Thirty new police positions will be created, with the majority of the funding, $4.9 million, coming from SGI. Highway officers will now be armed and will — along with conservation officers who already carry guns — be able to respond to calls and make arrests.
Sask. Party MLA for the Battlefords Herb Cox chaired the committee put together in November. Its formulation followed a spike in reports of farmland crime, reports of farmers arming themselves and rising tensions between rural residents, First Nations communities and police.
Cox said an increase in crime and crimes with violence, a high percentage of crime involving drugs, and increased gang activity swayed the committee’s decisions. Regina police told the committee that incidences of crystal meth increased 1,325 per cent from 2012 to 2016.
The committee sent out 300 invitations for presentations before visiting 10 communities — including First Nations groups — in a 12-day period before sending its 12-point recommendation list to the government.
Wyant said the PRT will focus on improving response times to property crimes; enhancing uniform visibility in rural areas; increasing enforcement of drug trafficking on highways; and reducing serious collisions.
Other responses will see the ministry rebuild rural crime watch systems, and help people to “crime-proof” properties.
“It was a while ago, you know, farms were a lot smaller than they are today and neighbours could keep an eye on their neighbours, and that’s not the case anymore. Farms are much larger and neighbours don’t have an opportunity to do that,” Wyant said.
Wyant said all PRT members will receive comprehensive training, which will be provided to all officers regardless of their designation. Training will start immediately so that the program can be “appropriately staffed” within this fiscal year, Wyant said, adding that the government will also, in September, be requesting federal funding to pursue building a Western Canada Aboriginal gang strategy.
When asked if he feared that “repurposing,” would leave certain policing areas neglected, deputy minister responsible for corrections and policing Dale McFee insisted there is “no anticipated loss of any services that communities will feel. We feel that we’ll be stronger …”
“I’m sure there will be some degree of growing pains,” said Curtis Zablocki, assistant RCMP commissioner in the province, when asked how an expansion of duties would affect existing RCMP officers and those being asked to do things previously the responsibility of regular beat police.
“Ultimately what will be important is the training that’s given to the resources that are going to form part of this team.”
Asked if conservation officers might not, naturally, be quite so keen on certain new duties, he said, “I don’t have an answer for you. It would be speculation.”
“We’ve heard time and time again from folks like Chief (Evan) Bray and Chief (Clive) Weighill, who say you can’t simply police yourself out of this crime problem,” NDP interim leader and justice spokeswoman Nicole Sarauer said after the briefing.
“The Sask. Party can’t say that they’re addressing this issue, while at the same time they’re making major cuts to education, mental health care. These are issues that need to be addressed as well,” Sarauer said.
“Largely it looks like they’re playing a shell game with public safety,” Sarauer said. “Some people are being moved around, but not a whole lot of new announcements here, and that’s particularly very concerning.”
Pressed on what the new responsibilities might mean for conservation officers — such as tackling regular 911-type emergencies — Kevin Murphy, assistant deputy minister for resource management and compliance with the Ministry of Environment, said additional compensation is being considered.
The province has 140 conservation officers in total, he said, with 98 the number on duty at any given time, meaning all will now be folded into the PRT.
“We have a duty to accommodate our staff (during training). If they find that this training is something that isn’t going to work for them, we’ll look for alternatives for the program,” Murphy said.