Community safety officer program to be piloted on-reserve in Saskatchewan

More First Nations communities in Saskatchewan may soon see community safety officers patrolling. 

Saskatchewan's provincial budget, released last month, included a $1-million increase for on-reserve policing and enhanced policing, bringing provincial spending there to $18.3 million in 2022. Some of that money will go to a pilot project to bring community safety officers (CSOs) to reserves in Saskatchewan.

Three officers will be positioned in Muskoday First Nation, just southeast of Prince Albert. 

Chief Ava Bear said the community deals with many crime problems similar to Prince Albert and some of the same issues rural communities face. 

"We see the CSO officers as being able to enhance community safety — for our whole community," Bear told CBC News. 

The community safety officers will be able to use various policing tools available in Saskatchewan, Bear said, like the traffic safety act or mental health act, while also enforcing various parts of Muskoday's own laws created through community legislation. 

The goal, she said, is to cut down on the overall number of crimes in Muskoday, with the community safety officers acting as more sets of eyes. 

In assessing the project's future, Bear said that when the pilot project is complete in about two years time, she'd be looking to the number and nature of crimes within Muskoday, and the tickets issued by the officers.

Bear said she'd like to see band members hired into CSO roles and pointed to training available in Prince Albert. Ultimately, anyone with the proper training would be welcomed into the role in Muskoday, she said.

First Nations must lead for success: FSIN

Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Chief Bobby Cameron said he was happy to see Saskatchewan investing more money into First Nations policing. 

A million dollars, he said, was a good start. 

Communities will benefit by having more protection from the illegal sales of drugs — and in some communities alcohol — which he said have killed far more First Nations people in Canada than COVID-19 has and will.

He said the province must seek First Nations guidance if it wants the money to be well-invested. 

"If there is no First Nation inclusion it will fail," Cameron said. 

"You have to — and they must — have all of their own First Nation people guiding and directing them from start to finish on this." 

Provincial order-in-council passes

On March 30, roughly a week after the budget was released, an order-in-council was approved that would see the governments of Saskatchewan and Canada create the First Nations community safety officer pilot project.

"[It] is a two-year pilot project that will allow government and First Nations to evaluate how effective this model is for First Nations," a statement from the Ministry of Corrections, Policing and Public Safety said. 

The pilot project is a collaboration between Public Safety Canada and includes three First Nation community safety officers on Whitecap Dakota First Nation along with the three in Muskoday First Nation. 

Discussions are ongoing with other First Nations as well, the ministry's statement said. 

The project will be funded through the First Nations Policing Program budget, with a cost-sharing breakdown of 52 per cent federal dollars and 48 per cent provincial dollars. Exactly how much would be spent was still being determined, the ministry's statement said, in discussion with First Nations partners.