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The commanding officer of the Saskatchewan RCMP says his officers are doing their best to keep the province safe while dealing with a growing volume of calls and a number of other challenges.
The comments by Assistant Commissioner Robin McNeil come after the Saskatchewan RCMP faced some harsh criticism from the Meadow Lake Tribal Council. During a news conference in Saskatoon on Wednesday, a number of chiefs and other leaders said the current policing model is ineffective, and has created a public safety crisis in their communities.
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Tribal Chief Jeremy Norman said the lack of police presence in the tribal council’s communities is leading to “serious injuries and deaths.” He said it’s not uncommon for people to wait more than an hour for the Mounties to arrive after calling for help.
Dene Vice-Chief Norma Catarat called response times “horrendous,” and said it took Mounties an hour and a half to respond after a person died in one of the council’s communities.
Given the slow response times, some of the leaders said they’ve had to allocate hundreds of thousands of dollars towards security – funds which otherwise would have gone towards things like mental health and addictions support or housing.
Clearwater River Dene Nation Councilor Roy Cheecham said the public safety crisis has reached the point where some residents feel scared to go to sleep in their homes.
Meanwhile, a Saskatchewan RCMP officer – Cst. Kalen Henderson of the Maidstone RCMP – was charged with a breach of trust this month after allegedly failing to leave the detachment for nine hours after being dispatched to perform a wellness check at a rural property in April of 2024. According to a report by the Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team, a police oversight agency, the subject of the wellness check request died in hospital after his relatives arrived to check on him.
Henderson is expected to appear in court next month in Lloydminster.
The Meadow Lake Tribal Council’s Cree Vice-Chief Richard Derocher says a partnership with the Saskatchewan Marshals Service may be the quickest option to improve public safety in the tribal council’s communities. (Marija Robinson/650 CKOM)
In a statement emailed to 650 CKOM, McNeil said he understands the frustrations many Saskatchewan communities are feeling around addictions, violence and other social issues, and said the federal police share those frustrations.
“It’s important to note that police response times to calls for service vary significantly from one area to the other and from one incident to the next,” McNeil said.
“A number of factors influence response times, such as the geographical challenges that come with the vast size of many of our detachment areas, road and weather conditions, call severity, the volume and level of urgency of other calls for service we are responding to at the same time. In many of our remote, rural and northern communities, police officers aren’t just solving crime – they also may respond to fires, to medical emergencies, and to mental health crises, among others.”
The RCMP leader said calls have rose by 45 per cent over the past 10 years, with violent crime and gun-related crimes also rising sharply during the same period.
McNeil, who took over from the ousted Rhonda Blackmore this summer, said he has “the utmost pride and confidence” in his officers and staff, who are “undoubtedly maintaining the safety” of communities across the province.
“We are your Provincial Police Service and we will continue to proudly support the communities where we work and live,” McNeil wrote.
But despite McNeil’s assertion that the Mounties represent Saskatchewan’s provincial police, the tribal council’s Cree Vice-Chief Richard Derocher said the quickest option to address the issues could come through a partnership with the Saskatchewan Marshals Service, a provincial police agency the Government of Saskatchewan launched this summer.
While the marshals service is not yet fully staffed, Derocher said it presents a good opportunity for a new partnership.
“We’re looking for a fix today,” he said.
–with files from 650 CKOM’s Marija Robinson
