Regina city council votes to mandate Indigenous representation on police board

The makeup of Regina's Board of Police Commissioners is going to look a bit different. 

Regina city council voted Wednesday to expand the police board and change who sits on it. Right now, there are five members. Council voted to expand that by two and have the makeup be as follows: the mayor, two members of council who will be appointed annually and four citizen members, also appointed annually. At least one of those four citizens has to be Indigenous.

Council voted unanimously for this change. Regina Mayor Michael Fougere said there was a discussion around making the rules too prescriptive. 

"If we become too prescriptive, we may miss some of the people too. We want more women on there as well, so that wasn't accounted for," he said to reporters Wednesday night. 

"I think sometimes we're trying to be prescriptive to make sure we get everyone and I think council came down and [said] let's just leave it open because we know what we're doing. We will look at this as a council and as the board of police, we'll make sure we have the right people."

Fougere also stressed the importance of civilian oversight and said the move to have four of those members on the board was a positive thing.

"That is important to give the individual the understanding that, look, it's not being run by the police investigating police," he said. 

"We've got other people doing that as well."