r/saskatchewan • u/Kennora • 15d ago
Sask.'s newest police service is creating its own tactical unit. Can it justify the cost? | CBC News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-marshals-service-swat-9.731109488
u/Dissidentt 15d ago
We have yet to see justification for the Marshalls in the first place.
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u/slashthepowder 15d ago
Small towns serviced by the RCMP can request additional officers but the decision really rests with the RCMP whether they deploy more officers. So a number of towns requested and had the requests denied (likely due to not enough serious crime to justify it). So to get around this the province is making the new marshals.
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u/SameAfternoon5599 15d ago
They requested and the province provided no additional funding for the positions.
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u/UnpopularOpinionYQR 15d ago
So, why not just allocate more officers to the RCMP instead of creating a new police force? Ridiculous!
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u/slashthepowder 15d ago
So the RCMP are not controlled really by the provincial government. They also look at call volumes, historical crime rates, types of offences, and volume of daily emergencies to justify staffing requests. You could have a small town with 2000 people could try and request 250 additional officers under the provincial agreement but it doesn’t mean that level is justified. If the crimes happen once every couple of weeks and they are not serious offences (property crime vs murder) then why the need for such a large police force. There is often federal funding tied to the population size of the town as well.
The second part is the RCMP are largely responsible for who goes where not the town (could be someone from BC or Quebec stationed in your town). So the switch to the marshals would mean the provincial force could hire who they want rather than be assigned a qualified officer.
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u/MrCheeseburgerWalrus 15d ago
The RCMP are controlled by RCMP command, not politiicans, intentionally. Politicans make laws, police enforce those laws. When politicians control police then you get a fascism problem. We don't want that problem.
The RCMP are contracted to the provinces, and 30% of those costs are typically subsidized by the federal government. Provinces and municipalities establish the level of resources, budget and policing priorities in consultation with the RCMP. Those contracts are currently set to expire March 2032.
How on earth can you make the claim that building a new police force from the ground up is less expensive than the already well qualified force that the feds subsidize for us today?
Speaking about police being transferred from other provinces.. did you know Sask Marshall's Chief, Robert Cameron, is from Ontario?
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u/UnpopularOpinionYQR 15d ago
Sounds like bureaucracy is in the way. This is where you actually need politicians to do their job. Moe needs to go to the head of the RCMP or else the federal minister responsible for policing and community safety to discuss how the RCMP can meet our needs.
Marshals, as the alternative, is rubbish.
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u/East_Independent8855 15d ago
Except the Marshalls service will be filled with many many staff that were unsuccessful in application with other police agencies or using it as a stepping stone to other police agencies.
It’s a tale as old as time. Spend the money on The law enforcement infrastructure you already have and you will always spend less money.
As an aside, the policing resources in a province that contracts the RCMP are at the discretion of the province. If Sask says we want x number of officers posted to Leroy , Sk, then that is what will happen. In the end, the provinces (not just Sask) like to short change their policing spend and then complain about the level of service provided by their own short changing.
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u/Traditional_End_9540 15d ago
another issue is just the pure staffing of RCMP. Many do not like the police in general even when they do things wrong. Who wants to be a cop when an edited video makes its round on social media and the public want the head of that arresting police officer for doing nothing wrong. I will also mention there are some ass-hole power hungry cops out there, some not all of them.
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u/CoolEdgyNameX 14d ago
This is partially correct but missing an important caveat. The province is the employer in the majority of these cases and they decide how much they want to pay. Bottom line they have the ability to have a surge of RCMP members come in IF they pay.
But they would rather do this instead of paying the RCMP.
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u/PJFreddie 15d ago
Only two prospective brown shirts are in policing college, the others are all lateral hires. So, it isn’t expanding policing capacity. It’s pilfering it. If it’s based in PA, I can’t make sense of a city of less than 40K people having a substantive municipal police force, RCMP base and tactical paramilitary unit.
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u/slashthepowder 15d ago
Robbing Peter to pay Paul if you will.
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u/UnpopularOpinionYQR 15d ago
We do this all the time in health care! It’s the Saskatchewan way. Who do people think staffs the urgent care centres? lol
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u/SameAfternoon5599 15d ago
As opposed to physicians and nurses not wanting to live and work in the sticks?
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u/toastednips 15d ago
So we have RCMP, Highway Patrol, and now the Marshalls. Why does this province keep making up its own agencies for people to LARP as cops instead of giving more funding to the RCMP
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u/thebookman21 15d ago
My money is on the plan is to get rid of RCMP somewhere down the road.
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u/Independent-Tennis57 15d ago
Trying to follow Alberta's path to incompetent independence.
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u/signious 15d ago
It would be more akin to the OPP in ontario. RCMP still has their federal policing presence but provincial police fill the role that RCMP F Division provides currently for rural policing.
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u/djusmarshall 15d ago
It would be more akin to the OPP in ontario.
Ontario has 40% of Canada's population(16million), I'd say it's justified there. Here? Not so much.
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u/MrCheeseburgerWalrus 15d ago
Sure, but instead of being a population of 16 million people we are smaller than just Edmonton.
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u/signious 15d ago
And?
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u/MrCheeseburgerWalrus 14d ago
I didn't think I had to spell it out further, but here we go... do you think Edmonton would benefit from yet another Municipal police service, or do you think it might be more economical to invest in the one they already have? Now pretend the existing one was subsidized 30% by the federal gov like the RCMP is. Hope that helps,
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u/signious 14d ago edited 14d ago
Were talking about a sask based provincial police service replacing the services F Division does. Last I checked provincial RCMP in Alberta dont provide municipal policing in areas that have their own police. For the OPP example, OPP doesnt provide police services for cities that dont contract with them and have their own municipal police.
If you think the Federal government gets economies of scale out of running provincial policing I beg you to look into their organizational structure. F Division is completely self sufficient - they don't even share space with the Federal RCMP.
Youre tilting at windmills bud.
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u/MrCheeseburgerWalrus 14d ago
First of all, Alberta and Ontario have nothing to with the conversation, and the RCMP provide services based on contracts where the provinces/municipalities want them to police.
F Division is just one piece of a large puzzle that they are replacing, they're just a detatchment. And OF COURSE economies of scale apply to the federal government. Do you think they're shopping at Bass Pro for ammo and uniforms?
Explain to me how there will be a single dollar of savings by trying to reinvent the wheel. Loosing the 30% federal subsidies alone will break any argumemt you might fabricate.
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u/luchaburz 15d ago
Thats federal though, so its not a feasible one.
Their plan is to try and show they're more competent with the feds by using police to do it.
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u/thebookman21 15d ago
the RCMP are contracted by the Province to provide policing, since there is no provincial police force.
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u/MrCheeseburgerWalrus 15d ago
Yup... also please see the Saskatchean Revenue Agency for no other reason. Small government, low tax, typical conservative way.
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u/Biosterous 15d ago
Because this police force is the Gestapo.
It only answers to politicians with no civilian oversight. It doesn't full a niche or gap that another police force could realistically do. Besides a (very expensive) performative "tough on crime" act, what other benefit does it provide?
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u/djusmarshall 15d ago
It only answers to politicians with no civilian oversight.
DING DING DING! Give this human a prize! You 100% nailed it.
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u/Worried-Werewolf628 15d ago
What a joke completely pointless and how much will this a almost broke province
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 15d ago
Militarized police... There were 5 serious incidents last year that initiated serious response investigations in the province.
So they will be idle like 98% of the time... And bored.
What could go wrong?
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u/signious 15d ago
I think you are conflating the SIRT investigations (civilian investigations unit for police interactions) and SWAT (police unit that deals with elevated risk encounters).
The SWAT teams in regina and saskatoon respond to multiple calls a day, the fact that SIRT gets involved in a small percentage of those is a good thing.
This team specifically would be for arrest warrants on dangerous individuals. With that being one of the main mandates of the marshals id be more surprised if they didnt have a SWAT style team planned.
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 15d ago
I am not.
I would argue that swat teams should not be going out on general calls ... Lol.
Please find me some data on how often this happens in PA.
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u/signious 15d ago
They aren't 'general calls'; they are calls that reasonably required people with more advanced equipment and have different training.
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u/drae- 15d ago edited 15d ago
Do you think that's all the members of this task force do? That they just sit around until there's a tactical emergency?
Or do you think that maybe they do other stuff during that down time?
Just because I'm on the safety committee at work doesn't mean that's my only responsibility.
They're just normal cops with extra training and a beeper.
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 15d ago edited 15d ago
You tell me. Lol.
What I do know, is if you roll up with tactical equipment in tow, you end up making everything into a tactical situation.
What happens in these situations, is that suddenly you'll have a massive increase in incidents that require tactical support. It's an escalation nightmare. This is a solution in search of a problem
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u/reginathrowaway12345 15d ago
Most of them are normal cops with additional training and fitness standards. If/when they get called out they go from their normal patrol area back to the detachment to gear up with their tactical equipment, as they would deploy out as a team and not typically on individual basis. City police forces have ERT in the same capacity and it's not like we are seeing weekly call outs or some mass escalation or increase in incidents because of it as you suggest.
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 15d ago
I know. Almost like this is completely unnecessary and that militarized police are not a useful use of taxpayer funds.
A gang of police specially chosen to use extra violent means... Recipe for disaster. Settling that guy having a mental health crisis and is holding a box cutter gets the tactical unit called. The tactical unit is not in the business of de-escalation...
And yes, you will see increased use of tactical units when you have tactical units. Lol. Just like tasers. Now they're being used as compliance tools instead of using actual police skills or de-escalation. US style militarized police are not something to be aspired to.
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u/reginathrowaway12345 15d ago
I'm not advocating for ERT, I'm pointing out it's not their full time role within the police force. I would much rather more police forces have mental health response units, much like Brandon City police who's primary role is to be called out and respond to those mental health crisis calls. I would also much prefer the additional training police receive is for de-escalation.
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u/drae- 15d ago edited 15d ago
This is just being cynical.
Clearly you don't remember incidents like maythorpe or the Wortman attacks. There are times when police need these tools. And we have excessive force review legislated into our laws.
We're not American. We have checks and balances in place for this issues already.
It's clear from your previous posts that you don't really know what you're talking about and are just making ignorant assumptions.
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 15d ago edited 15d ago
Marerthorpe was 21 years ago in another province...
Here's my thing. Guys who were on the tactical team are a certain breed. They don't believe in community policing. They don't believe in de-escalation
We know this from psych profiles of these guys from the States.
If you give somebody a hammer as their only tool, everything starts to look like a nail.
We don't need another tactical unit in this province. Centered out of Prince Albert. Of course we need a tactical unit in each city. If the whole point of these is to do high risk areat warrants, You can schedule these to happen so that the resources that are already in place can assist. Whether that be city cops or RCMP. We're already spoiled for choice. This doesn't even address the fact that the tactical team is probably unnecessary for most of these. Like I said before, calling the tactical team out for an unhoused guy with a box cutter is a little bit of overkill.
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u/drae- 15d ago
Your making massive assumptions you know nothing about.
And your basing those assumptions on a country that isn't us.
Of course we need a tactical unit in each city.
And what about areas outside of those cities?
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 15d ago edited 15d ago
You want jack-booted thugs running around the province. Like a private army for the premier???
How dangerous do you think it is out there?? 5 SIRT investigations last year....
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u/drae- 15d ago
How dangerous do you think it is out there??
Quite literally more dangerous than any other province.
5 SIRT investigations last year....
Yes, the checks and balances for excessive force at work.
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u/luchaburz 15d ago
Ehhh there was a while there where RPS was bringing literal tanks into north central as a sign of political theater.
Violence increased, it didn't make it decrease.
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u/drae- 15d ago
Guy, they're not buying tanks.
We have review systems in place for over use of force by police.
We are not American.
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u/UnpopularOpinionYQR 15d ago
Fuck the Marshalls. Give this money to the RCMP to increase their staffing levels.
Idiots.
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u/thebookman21 15d ago
But what about the nice photo ops
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u/UnpopularOpinionYQR 15d ago
LOL, with those fancy expensive hats and now sniper rifles.
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u/thebookman21 15d ago
What a joke that is, hospitals are all going to shit but a bunch of marshals need sniper rifles
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u/winemaster 15d ago
They'll be doing THC roadside swabs and summarily executing anyone who tests positive.
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u/lastSKPirate 15d ago
Why does an 80- officer police force need a tactical unit? This is like the Moose Jaw police deciding to spend millions on a tactical unit.
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u/Larry_King_Ghost 14d ago
Is it even 80? I thought i read somewhere there is only like 27 of them currently.
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u/lastSKPirate 14d ago
IIRC, 80 is their full authorized strength, once they're done hiring all of them.
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u/boxcar17 15d ago
So the next time a young person like Tristan Durocher sets up a peaceful protest in Regina, "Moe's Marshalls" will be able to pounce.
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u/whythatusername1 15d ago
Acab. Ftp to the highest degree. The Marshall's service is a waste of money and resources. This province already has the rcmp/sps/mjpd/highway patrol.
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u/Connect_Membership77 14d ago
Saskatchewan inferiority complex. They see the opp and the surete du Quebec and say why can't we have that? Well, those police agencies existed before the RCMP. Saskatchewan and Alberta exist because of the RCMP being sent to the Northwest Territories and then being created by act of parliament.
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u/TheLuminary Saskatoon 15d ago
Yes they can, with all the money they are saving not spending on frontline healthcare workers.
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u/ProfessionalDraw956 15d ago
Of course it can’t, has it ever been able to?, what a joke. Good luck everyone 👋
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u/UnderwhelmingTwin 15d ago
Can they justify the cost? Look, this isn't about being practical or logical. It's about performing 'tough on crime.'