Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list inclu...
Nearly 300 pages of black ink — that’s all the Saskatchewan NDP said it received when it tried to find out why a member of the Saskatchewan Marshals Service resigned following a misconduct investigation.
“The people of Saskatchewan deserve answers … 290 pages, all completely redacted, even the dates,” the NDP justice and policing critic Nicole Sarauer told reporters on Thursday.
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“It’s not very often a police force receives a public complaint before even starting to work… it makes one wonder what this person did,” Sarauer said.
The Opposition said the incident was first reported in April, noting that an investigation into a marshal had been completed and a report delivered to Justice Minister Tim McLeod’s office. The marshal has since resigned.
The NDP filed a Freedom of Information request for all misconduct allegations and complaints involving the Marshals Service from November 2022 to May 2025. The party said the province responded with 290 fully redacted pages, hiding not only the contents but the dates of emails and documents.
Nearly 300 pages of records were released to the NDP with all content — even dates — fully redacted. (Jacob Bamhour/980 CJME)
Sarauer said that level of secrecy raises questions about whether there were other complaints beyond the one already reported. The incident occurred when only a handful of marshals had been hired, prompting concerns about vetting and hiring processes.
“I really hope this was just a bad apple … but the fact that it happened so early makes one wonder what the vetting process was,” Sarauer said.
“Since then, have there been stronger vetting processes put in place? We don’t know, because the minister hasn’t provided any of that information.”
The NDP has asked the provincial ombudsman to investigate the Marshals Service, and has also referred the government’s refusal to release details to the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner.
Sarauer stressed the NDP respected the work of the Public Complaints Commission during its investigation, but said now that the review is finished, the results should be made public.
“Just because it didn’t lead to criminal charges doesn’t mean the public shouldn’t be aware,” Sarauer said.
“Police officers, and marshals, need to be vetted properly and the public needs to be confident in that process.”
The marshals service, announced in 2022 and formally launched this summer, was intended to focus on high-profile warrants and rural crime. The NDP has argued it adds bureaucracy rather than putting more officers on the ground.
The marshals service said in a response that the documents referenced relate to a single complaint concerning one member’s conduct, and do not involve multiple complaints against the Saskatchewan Marshals Service.
The Saskatchewan Party said in a statement r that decisions regarding Freedom of Information access requests are made internally by the permanent head of the organizations involved in the request, without the involvement of the elected. In this case it would be the Chief Marshal of the Saskatchewan Marshals Service.
“It should be concerning to the public that the lost and reckless NDP has attempted to pressure and dictate the decisions of not just one, but two independent oversight bodies, the Public Complaint Commission and the Ombudsman,” the Sask Party statement said.
“This not only undermines the independence of these offices but sets a dangerous precedent of politicizing processes that are explicitly designed to be neutral and non-partisan.”
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