QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Rural Economic Development
Rural Policing
December 1, 2022
Minister, in September, 11 people were murdered during a stabbing rampage at James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. We know of your government’s recent pledge of $40 million for the First Nation, but we also know that the issue is that there simply aren’t enough police officers to respond to crimes in progress or emergencies in a timely way in rural areas. When a citizen calls the RCMP, they are often told just to stay inside and lock their doors because they can’t get there.
Will your government commit, minister, to allocating serious new funding for training, recruitment and resources for the RCMP for officers for all rural areas of Saskatchewan and rural Canada? After all, safety and security are key economic determinants.
Senator Wallin, that’s an incredible question. Sadly, we have to talk about it too much.
I talked to Minister Mendicino about this, and he and I have done a round table on rural policing, because it is different.
I have nine RCMP detachments in my riding. There is hours between them, and all of them are 30% underserved. It was before the pandemic. It wasn’t just all because of the pandemic.
I also reach out to the provinces and the territories and say that we have to have a discussion of how we do rural policing better. Do we have to focus on using the RCMP for the cybersecurity and the big drug busts? In my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, we have the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. Do we help put them out on the ground in further areas?
It’s a conversation we all have to have. It’s not one-size-fits-all. It’s what we can do to work together with the provinces and territories to make sure that the applicable resources are there.
This is a serious issue. I have heard terrible stories, as I’m sure you have, of people committing petty crime, probably for drug money, where they target the space in between where they know it’s a three-hour recovery for whatever policing unit to get there. They target that maximum time so they know they can get in and out. That’s not a way that we need to live in Canada.
So I’m there with you. If you have some ideas, please let me know. It’s only by creative ideas that we will be able to address this from coast to coast to coast.
