Saskatoon city council adds more civilians to police commission board

In a move designed to take politics out of policing, the majority of Saskatoon's police commission will now be made up of members of the public, not elected councillors.

"Having a police commission that has a majority of civilians means you can better separate out the politics of city council from any politics at the police board level," said Mayor Charlie Clark, who has been pushing for more public appointees for years. 

Clark said it's an important move that brings the city more in line with other cities across the country. He said the board will make sure politics aren't part of day-to-day policing. 

"You don't want to get in a situation where the city council is directing more operationally what is happening in a police service — and so, by having by those civilians members, that's a buffer against that," Clark said. 

The move means Saskatoon's Board of Police Commissioners will now be made up of seven people — three city councillors and four members of the public. 

Former legal aid lawyer Kearney Healy and former United Way chair Jo Custead join the board that is currently made up of Clark, Coun. Darren HIll, Coun. Mairin Loewen, Darlene Brander and Carolanne Inglis-McQuay.

Arguably the largest task for the board's new members will be selecting the city's new police chief. Chief Clive Weighill retired in October and the hunt is now on to find his replacement. 

Pros and cons

Erick Laming, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto who studies police, said the move will help stop the kind of "rubber stamping" that sometimes happens when police boards are dominated by politicians. 

"If you have civilian oversight, they hopefully know what's best for the community. Whereas if you have people who have been on there for years on end really are just in favour of police, that's when you don't see any pushback," said Laming. 

Laming said while the public may not often notice, police boards do have a huge impact on police policy. In Toronto, for example, the civilian police board was at the centre of a controversy earlier this year involving the armed police officers in schools. 

While the mayor and others praised the move to add more civilian oversight, one city councillor said the appointments did raise some concerns.

Coun. Randy Donauer said he thinks the public members on the board are doing a good job, but said the fact that there will be more unelected people overseeing police is troubling. 

"I do question the validity of having what I call political appointments representing constituents rather than elected officials," Donauer said.

In the end, Donauer voted in favour of the appointments. He said officials and members of the board said having more members of the public on the police commission was a best practice in most cities across the country. Still, he said his concerns that the public members are not elected, and therefore not as accountable to the public, still stand. 

"I'm an elected official. If I don't perform well, people can fire me at any time. I'm not sure what happens with the police commission," he said. 

Board appointment process

Currently people wanting to serve on the police commission apply to City Hall. Then the board itself makes recommendations on who they think would be a good candidate. Those candidates receive final approval from city council. 

Laming said Donauer's concerns are valid. In his published research, he has suggested the best way forward would be to abandon the process of appointing people to boards and instead hold separate elections for board members. 

He said because of things like the cost of running elections, his suggestion has received "a lot of pushback" in Ontario. 

The new board members will start their work at the board's next meeting in January.