Sask. RCMP's top officer on James Smith Cree Nation inquests, Indigenous recruitment, other challenges

Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore, the commanding officer of the RCMP in Saskatchewan sat down with CBC's Alexander Quon for a year-end interview earlier this month.

Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Quon: So I'll start off by asking how has this year been for the RCMP in Saskatchewan? 

Blackmore: It's been a busy year. We continue to see an increase in the number of calls. We continue to see an increase in violent calls. We've unfortunately seen an increase in the number of assaults on our members out there. So there's certainly been challenges.

What does the future look like for the RCMP here in Saskatchewan? Are there any major changes coming up?

I think the 2024 is going to be a positive year. I'm very optimistic that there are great things coming.

Some of our challenges this past year have been around recruiting, and our inability to recruit enough members to come to Saskatchewan, and there's been changes to the RCMP process and the ability for people who apply from Saskatchewan to remain in Saskatchewan.

So if someone wasn't interested necessarily in leaving the province, they have the ability to remain here. I think it's great that we have individuals who understand the challenges of the province staying here.

We have our Indigenous recruiting unit, which we started up late last year, and they have seen great success this year in attracting Indigenous applicants to the RCMP.

Our first all-Indigenous troop, which we are hoping to fill — if not all, the majority of positions — with Saskatchewan applicants, is scheduled to happen this coming year. That to me is super exciting, so that we can be more representative of the populations we police.

Recruiting isn't only a problem for RCMP. We've heard it from Regina police. We've heard it from a number of police forces. Why, in particular, is it a challenge for Saskatchewan RCMP?

There was COVID, there was the defund the police movement which sort of detracted from applicants who may otherwise have been interested in policing as a career. But I think we've we've turned a corner on that and that people recognize there is need for police.

There is a high amount of accountability with policing. There are lots of oversights with policing. I think people are starting to understand that a little bit better.

When it comes to recruiting here in Saskatchewan, we want to make sure we have individuals who understand this province, who are interested in being part of their community. When members are from Saskatchewan, they already have that sort of interest in the province.

We have other members who are coming from across the country who have done a fabulous job policing here in this province. Some of them have made this their home.

We can't control Mother Nature. She's been kind to us, this winter, thus far as temperatures and weather, but that's a reality that we face in Saskatchewan. The winters can be harsh and that's maybe not for everyone, but we have such a great group of people here.

We have an outstanding leadership team in the province and our employees are second to none. They are super engaged. So part of our challenge is getting the word out too, because we have applicants who of course come from across the country, who come to Depot here in Regina.

Depot being across the fence from our headquarters is a huge advantage for us in many ways, but it sometimes is a challenge because individuals come and they look around Dewdney Avenue, and around Depot, they don't venture too far because they're very busy during training and they think that's what the whole province looks like.

Are there particular challenges with rural policing right now in Saskatchewan? Does that pose an issue with recruitment, knowing that people might have to be posted out in rural areas?

I think so. You know, not every individual wants to necessarily live in a small community. That's my preference, having grown up on a farm in Ontario. But that's not everybody's preference. So it is challenging in some ways.

Some individuals are more attracted to the municipal environment and would like to stay in larger cities. We do have a lot of individuals who go to small towns and absolutely love it. 

Rural policing and the geography, I would say is, one of our biggest challenges. We have to cover a large distance of geography to get to calls to be able to back up members. That we can't change.

So we just have to look at sometimes innovative ways that we can do that better. Saskatchewan's a big province and the RCMP polices 99 per cent of the geography. That's 651,000 square kilometres. So that's a big area to be responsible for.

You mentioned the close relationship between Depot and this division here. What does that relationship look like? 

It's incredibly helpful to us in many ways, not just the facilities. Depot often has the ability to offer us members that might be available who may not be instructing at the time.

They sometimes come and do recruiting for us. They've done relief duties for us, filling in in spots where we needed additional human resources.

But even more than that, we held a session with our Indigenous applicants, actually two sessions earlier this year, and we were able to bring those Indigenous applicants into Regina and showcase Depot to them so they could see for themselves.

You know, they hear lots about what it's like, but they ate their meals over at the mess with the cadets who are there so they can see that environment. They were able to do some of their fitness, something that you can't necessarily do by just being across the fence in other provinces.

You've mentioned Indigenous recruitment a few times and the goal of that. Why is it so important to get Indigenous applicants, Indigenous recruits, Indigenous officers?

It's incredibly important in this province. We have 70 First Nations, almost half the population [policed by the RCMP] is Indigenous. It's the fastest growing demographic and the RCMP here in Saskatchewan hasn't done a great job in the last number of years in being able to recruit Indigenous applicants. 

So the focus has really been on connecting with those individuals. Everyone's aware the RCMP's past with Indigenous people has been strained at times. There's some pretty significant black marks on our history with Indigenous peoples, but we've worked very hard over the last number of years to work on increasing the trust, rebuilding that trust in those communities.

Our Indigenous recruiting unit is doing exactly that.

We have different ways of communicating. We're using posters, old-school posters, and it's been very successful in communities. We've translated those posters into Dene, into Cree, into Saulteaux, into Michif, so that people see their language represented in RCMP hiring practices.

Years back, the [commanding officer] of the day, Harper Boucher, had a vision and utilized our now-Lt.-Gov. Russ Moraski, who was responsible for what was then called Aboriginal policing, and they were successful in having three Indigenous troops from Saskatchewan go through Depot.

All those individuals all came back to Saskatchewan and were incredibly successful. We've had so many positive initiatives and they've given so much to this province, but those individuals went through training in 2000 and they're seriously getting close to retirement age, where they might like to actually enjoy some of the other aspects of life rather than just policing.

So we have a large number of those Indigenous RCMP members who we could potentially lose from the organization through retirement in the next couple of years. And we want to make sure we maintain that representation in Saskatchewan.

I think the only way can do that is if we really focus on our applicants out there and offer them the opportunity to join the RCMP.

How important is it to communicate not just with media but with the communities that you police?

Absolutely critical. And that's why we have several initiatives here in Saskatchewan available to us.

One that we use is our Crimewatch advisory network, making sure that we have the ability to get information on crime in a specific area or a specific type of crime out to individuals who have signed up to receive those alerts.

This year, recognizing the issue with missing persons, especially missing Indigenous persons, we wanted to make sure we had an avenue to get information out.

An intrusive alert that would go to everyone's phone isn't necessarily the best solution, because there'd be so many of them. I think people would become a little bit immune to those alerts. So we looked at the Crime Watch Advisory Network and we're working to get more people signed up on that so that you can get those alerts, so that we can get the information out to people quickly.

In cases where there are we believe there's an imminent risk to public safety, then we have our alerting system for dangerous persons, Amber alert for missing children, those types of alert.

In the September 2022 James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon, Sask., homicides [alerts] were absolutely critical to get that information out as soon as possible.

I wanted to to turn to the James Smith Cree Nation. The coroner's inquests are booked for next year. As a force, how do you prepare for that?

There's several different avenues. Probably the biggest piece is preparing the disclosure, getting the information from the investigation to the individuals who will be part of that inquest and making sure that we've supplied that.

This is a massive undertaking when you think about the amount of files, the amount of exhibits, the amount of paperwork involved.

We had an independent officer review that was led mostly out of the Alberta RCMP to make sure that we had all aspects looked at and that is nearing completion.

We're planning on releasing that in the New year as well. We certainly don't want to influence anything with the inquest.  It's very important to us that we remain transparent, so it would be after that.

When it comes to the inquest, one of our biggest concerns always at the forefront of this are the victims and the families left behind, who unfortunately were victimized as part of that incident, and making sure we are communicating what we can with them. They always are the first to know the information.

We recognize the inquest are going to be a really tough time for those family members and survivors of those attacks. So making sure that we can help them as much as possible.

I wanted to ask about the officers that did respond to James Smith Cree Nation. Obviously that's very traumatic for them as well. What are the processes you have in place for the officers who may be called to testify or are still dealing with the impacts of that incident?

I think one of the successes we've seen over the last number of years is that recognition of not only talking about mental wellness and mental health, but also actioning it and providing resources available to our employees.

We conduct things such as critical incident debriefs at the time.

One of the lessons we've learned, sadly, here in Saskatchewan over several major incidents such as the Humboldt Broncos bus crash or the La Loche shooting, is that we need to make sure we have that continued care so that we have resources available to those members.

The impact, it's significant, and I think probably some of the information will come out more at the inquest, but the actions of our members were, in some cases, nothing short of heroic as they were dealing with a scene, trying to help individuals not only to respond, but provide medical care.

They were arriving on scene and dealing with individuals who are now terrified of what was happening in their community, who had armed themselves, and were not sure was this person protecting themselves or were they potentially a perpetrator. There was a lot happening and so that's a lot for individuals to process.

Our members are exceptionally well trained, but it's very difficult for anyone, regardless of training. At the end of the day, they're still human beings trying to process some of the things they see, some of the things they had to do to look after and help individuals.

It's sort of humanity at its worst, and those effects stay with you a very long time, if not a lifetime.