CONTENTS
Standing
Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs and Justice
Bill No. 31 — The Defamation
Act
Justice and Attorney General Vote 3
THIRTIETH
LEGISLATURE
of
the
Legislative Assembly of
Saskatchewan
STANDING
COMMITTEE ON
INTERGOVERNMENTAL
AFFAIRS AND JUSTICE
Hansard
Verbatim Report
No.
13 — Monday, April 13, 2026
Chair
B. McLeod: — And welcome to the
Standing Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs and Justice. Many of us will be
here for a very long time tonight, so we’re going to be just great friends by
the time the evening’s over.
So my name is Blaine McLeod,
and I will be the Chair tonight. And we have got some new introductions tonight
here that we need to do as well. So myself as Chair, Blaine McLeod. We have MLA
[Member of the Legislative Assembly] Brad Crassweller, MLA the Hon. Jamie
Martens, and MLA Megan Patterson. And on my left we have MLA Bhajan Brar, MLA Hugh Gordon, and MLA
Nicole Sarauer. Welcome everyone. And those three are substitutions for tonight
as well. And welcome; I appreciate your involvement here with us on Intergovernmental
Affairs and Justice.
So
consideration of Bill No. 31. We’re
considering two bills and then the estimates and supplementary estimates no. 2
for the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General, the Firearms Secretariat, and
the Ministry of Community Safety. We will take a recess — yay — between 6:30
and 7.
Bill No. 31 — The Defamation
Act
Clause 1
Chair B. McLeod: — And we will
first consider Bill No. 31, The Defamation Act, beginning with
consideration of clause 1, short title.
Minister McLeod is here with his officials, and I would
ask that officials introduce themselves before they speak for the first time.
And no need to touch the microphones; a Hansard operator will turn them
on and off for you when you speak. So let’s begin. Minister, please introduce
your officials and make your opening comments.
Hon. Tim McLeod: — Well thank you
very much, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon, everyone. Joining me for Bill 31 and
Bill 32, I have to my left Darcy McGovern, K.C. [King’s Counsel], legal
executive director, public law division with the Ministry of Justice and
Attorney General. And to my right, Maria Markatos, K.C., director of
legislative services branch, Ministry of Justice and Attorney General.
Mr. Chair, I am pleased to offer some opening remarks
concerning Bill 31, The Defamation Act. Bill 31 will
repeal and replace the existing libel and slander Act with a new Act. The new
Act will incorporate recommendations made by the Law Reform Commission of
Saskatchewan to update and modernize the law of defamation in Saskatchewan.
The new Act will define defamation to include both libel
and slander, reflecting the approach taken in most other Canadian jurisdictions
and by the courts. Over time the distinction between libel and slander has
created arbitrary differences. Combining the two will bring simplicity and
uniformity to the law of defamation in Saskatchewan.
Mr. Chair, the new Act will eliminate distinctions
between different kinds of publishers, making application of this Act and the
defences and remedies available the same, regardless of whether the alleged
defamation occurred in print or online.
Where defamation is proven,
damages are available to the plaintiff in an amount determined by the court.
The new Act includes take down and de-indexing remedies to reflect the harm
that may be done by modern online publishing. The new Act will maintain the
existing privilege exceptions and add a new defence for peer-reviewed material.
Mr. Chair, a House amendment
will be presented to add a new clause 4. The new clause will codify the common
law in Canada that says once defamation is proven, damages are presumed. The
onus then shifts to the defendant to demonstrate a defence to the defamation or
mitigation of damages. While damages are presumed, the value of such damages
must still be determined by the court based on factors including the
plaintiff’s conduct, the plaintiff’s position and standing, and the mode and
extent of the publication.
Mr. Chair, with those opening
remarks, I welcome any questions respecting Bill
31, The Defamation
Act.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you, Minister. I
will now open the floor to questions. I recognize MLA Sarauer.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Minister, for your opening remarks. Let’s
first talk about the House amendment that you are putting forward. You
mentioned that this amendment will be codifying what already exists in common
law. Does this codification exist anywhere else in Canada and, if so, where?
Maria Markatos:
— I’m Maria Markatos, Ministry of Justice and Attorney General. There are
several jurisdictions that codify this provision, including Alberta, Manitoba,
New Brunswick, all of the territories, and Newfoundland. And of course, where
it’s not codified the common law would apply, so BC [British Columbia],
Ontario, and Nova Scotia, as well as Saskatchewan until this Act comes into
force.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
As has been mentioned, this legislation is the result of consultation that
occurred through the Law Reform Commission, and they created a report, the Final
Report on Reform of The Libel and Slander Act. This House amendment
was not included as one of the recommendations. Do you have any idea why that’s
the case?
Maria Markatos:
— It wasn’t explicitly included as one of the recommendations, but it was
raised after the fact by members of the Law Reform Commission and will be
included as an abundance of caution, just so there’s no question whether or not
that common-law provision would apply in Saskatchewan.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. Moving on the entirety of the bill, could you speak a bit more about
the work that the Law Reform Commission did in creating the report?
Darcy McGovern:
— Darcy McGovern. So the Law Reform Commission released a consultation report
on the project in June of 2022. The consultations ran from June ’22 to March
2023. There was feedback received from, you know, from a number of fronts,
including the Law Society of Saskatchewan. There were specific survey
responses, and a working group was held to more specifically deal with some of
the defamation issues.
The written comments were
also received from the Canadian Media Lawyers Association, a law prof from a
different common-law province, and the office of public registry’s
administration. The CBA [Canadian Bar Association] didn’t take a particular
position on it with respect to the survey, or didn’t respond, I guess, is more
properly . . . So we’re of the view that there was a fairly broad
consultation conducted by the Law Reform Commission.
And as you know, the
initiation for the project, this is a piece of legislation that’s been around
since 1909, The Libel and Slander Act. It’s only been amended one or two
times since then. And the reality that the Law Reform Commission, I think,
initiated from was to say that when libel was articulated within this
legislation, newspapers were the whole game.
And of course we live in a
multimedia environment now. And there was a need to both recognize that libel
and slander, that the distinctions that used to be made didn’t make any sense
anymore, would be better to treat it all as defamation and then to seek to
accommodate the reality that a lot of this occurs online.
And so you will have noticed
in the bill we’ve included provisions for take-down remedies so that there’s
something that recognizes that, in that environment, there can be quickly
spread an untrue statement that has a devastating effect on a person’s reputation,
and that it needs to go beyond just simply saying that there’s a fine.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Also mentioned in the Law Reform Commission report is the existence of
recommendations through the Uniform Law Conference. Can you speak to those as
well?
Darcy McGovern:
— The Uniform Law Conference position with respect to libel is similar with
respect to libel and slander in the broad strokes, that they eliminate the
difference between libel and slander, that they call for a modernization of the
provisions. So we feel that this is consistent with that entirely. But of
course the Law Reform Commission of Saskatchewan is more specific to
Saskatchewan with respect to our existing legislation and the case law in the
province.
[15:45]
Nicole
Sarauer: —
In drafting this legislation did the ministry conduct any additional
consultations in addition to what the Law Reform Commission already did?
Darcy McGovern:
— No, and as you know, having a report issued for consultation in 2022 and
being here on the floor three or four years later is actually moving quite
quick in that environment. And so that was one of the advantages here, was that
we were able to piggyback on the consultation that was done by the Law Reform
Commission.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
The Law Reform Commission’s report contains 19 recommendations for modernizing The
Libel and Slander Act. Were all of those recommendations followed?
Darcy McGovern:
— The one that was not was with respect to SLAPP [strategic lawsuit against
public participation]. And this was a decision that was made in terms of
looking at it, that while it’s fair for the Law Reform Commission to raise the
issues in general terms, the empirical basis for that in Saskatchewan was
difficult to establish.
As the member’s aware and the
members will be aware, our Court of King’s Bench is known for being vigilant
and to making sure that there is no abuse of their process before them. For
example, section 7‑9 of the Rules of Court provide that an order could be
made with respect to amending or striking out pleadings if it discloses no
reasonable claim or defence; is scandalous, frivolous, vexatious, immaterial;
prejudice or delay or otherwise abuse of the court. That’s separate from the
costs’ provisions as well as the vexatious proceedings.
So until such time as there’s
an empirical basis for that, and given our confidence in the court in this
regard, we didn’t make a recommendation within the ministry for that change to
be made as well.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
I did notice that that was the only recommendation that was followed. It seemed
a little strange to me that it was the only one not followed out of the 19
recommendations. And as the minister’s well aware, anti-SLAPP legislation
already exists in Ontario, BC, and Quebec.
The Uniform Law Conference
has also recommended it so that there’s uniformity across jurisdictions. It’s
something that I have introduced as a private member’s bill, I think three
times now. So it’s something that I have heard from stakeholders, that it’s
something that they would like to see enacted in Saskatchewan.
So my question is, in light
of the recommendations in the Law Reform Commission and the Uniform Law
Conference and of course, as you’re well aware, the advocacy we have done in
the opposition for this, why not use this as an opportunity to provide anti-SLAPP
protection for the people of Saskatchewan?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
I would say the door isn’t slammed on the conversation about anti- SLAPP
legislation. However we do have, as Darcy mentioned, the utmost confidence in
the court and its process to navigate and deal with frivolous and vexatious
claims, which ultimately we’d be talking about the same thing.
And so leaving that in the
hands of the court for the judiciary to decide, given the Rules of Court that
Darcy cited, we think that sufficiently covers it.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Because it’s something that we feel is important and it was included in the Law
Reform Commission, just for the committee’s ease, I’m going to read that
section of the report into the record. Then we can move on to the next stages
of the committee.
So this is section M,
Anti-SLAPP Legislation, and this is from the final report on reform of The
Libel and Slander Act that was created by the Law Reform Commission. And
again this is the only recommendation that wasn’t included in this legislation
that’s in front of us this afternoon.
And they said:
Ontario,
British Columbia, and Quebec have each enacted anti-SLAPP, which is strategic
lawsuits against public participation, legislative provisions. The Supreme
Court of Canada has described SLAPPs as follows:
Strategic
lawsuits against public participation are a phenomenon used to describe exactly
what the acronym refers to: lawsuits initiated against individuals or
organizations that speak out or take a position on an issue of public interest.
SLAPPs are generally initiated by plaintiffs who engage the court process and
use litigation not as a direct tool to vindicate a bona fide claim, but as an
indirect tool to limit the expression of others. In a SLAPP the claim is merely
a facade for the plaintiff, who is in fact manipulating the judicial system in
order to limit the effectiveness of the opposing party’s speech and deter that
party or other potential interested parties from participating in public
affairs.
It is
worth noting that SLAPP suits are not limited to defamation suits; however
defamation is commonly relied on in these types of claims.
In
essence, these types of provisions allow a defendant to a defamation claim to
seek dismissal of the claim in a preliminary proceeding on the basis that the
defendant’s expression is on a matter of public interest. If the defendant
meets this burden, the plaintiff then must establish that the claim has
substantial merit and that the defendant has no valid defence. The plaintiff
also must establish that the harm likely to be suffered from the defendant’s
expression is “sufficiently serious” and outweighs the public interest in
defending the defendant’s freedom of expression.
In the
Consultation Report, the Commission asked whether perceived — or actual — abuse
of defamation claims with respect to matters of public interest are a concern
in Saskatchewan, and if so, how should this concern be addressed.
Consultees
were largely of the view that Saskatchewan should enact anti-SLAPP legislation
similar to the legislation in place in Ontario and BC. The Commission is also
of the view that anti-SLAPP legislation is the preferred method of addressing
concerns surrounding frivolous and trivial defamation claims.
The
Commission recommends Saskatchewan consider enacting anti-SLAPP legislation.
This was quoted from pages 62
and 63 of the report.
So, Minister, I hear what
you’re saying. I understand and also respect of course the work of the courts
of Saskatchewan in the consultation that the Law Reform Commission did. The
respondents, according to the report, said that they were largely of the view
that Saskatchewan should, in spite of this, still enact anti-SLAPP legislation
similar to what’s already in place, and that it is the preferred method of
addressing concerns surrounding frivolous and trivial defamation claims.
When I first heard about this
as an issue and as a gap in legislation in Saskatchewan, it was several years
ago. But it was in light of some individuals who had raised concerns about
sexual harassment in a public sphere and had been met with defamation suits in
response to that and had effectively been silenced by those defamation suits.
They came to me in a
gender-based violence context to talk about the need for anti-SLAPP
legislation. Of course there’s a lot of other ways that anti-SLAPP legislation
could be used, arguably beneficially for the people of the province. And again
it was a part of the recommendations.
So I hear what you’re saying.
I just wanted to put the concerns on the record. I don’t know if you have
anything else you want to add.
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
Thank you. No, and I think the point is well made. And as I said, the
conversation isn’t closed.
These
types of allegations are very serious allegations and where there’s an ulterior
motive for a lawsuit. Again I’ll reiterate that we have the utmost respect for
the court’s independence, and we have confidence in the King’s Bench’s own
processes to address frivolous and vexatious claims.
Scandalous
claims are specifically addressed in the Rules of Court. Where there is an
ulterior motive it’s, I believe, appropriate for the judges to exercise their
judicial independence and their discretion to identify those ulterior motives
and address them accordingly.
Nicole
Sarauer: — Thank you. No further questions.
Chair B. McLeod: — Seeing no more questions, we will
proceed to vote on the clauses. And I must say that
I know each ministry and department has their own acronyms that they throw
around, and thank you for actually saying the names of some of them as well. So
we got an education here tonight as well, so we appreciate that. Anyway we’ll
proceed.
Clause 1, short title, is
that agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Carried.
[Clause 1 agreed to.]
[Clauses
2 to 21 inclusive agreed to.]
Chair
B. McLeod: — MLA Martens.
Clause 4
Hon.
Jamie Martens: —
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to move a new clause.
Chair
B. McLeod: — MLA Martens has moved new
clause 4. Would any members like to speak to the new clause? Oh, I’m sorry. You
haven’t given me the motion.
Hon.
Jamie Martens: —
No worries. Thank you.
New
Clause 4 of the printed Bill
Add the
following Clause after Clause 3 of the printed Bill:
“Presumption
of damage
4
An action lies for defamation and in a defamation action, if defamation is
proved, damage shall be presumed”.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Do committee members
agree with the amendment as read?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Carried. Now is new
clause 4 agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Carried.
[Clause 4 agreed to.]
Chair
B. McLeod: — His Majesty, by and with
the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, enacts as
follows: The Defamation Act.
I would ask a member to move
that we report Bill No. 31, The Defamation Act
with amendment. MLA Martens moves. Is that agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Carried. Any closing
comments by the minister? Please.
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
I’ll reserve my closing comments for the conclusion after we deal with the next
bill.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Any closing comments from
other members? Same. Thank you very much. So are we needing a recess to check
out or change, switch out officials?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
We have one other bill, Mr. Chair.
[16:00]
Chair
B. McLeod: — We have one other bill,
but just, you need any other officials?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
No, same officials.
Chair B. McLeod:
— Fair enough.
Bill No. 32 — The
Defamation Consequential Amendments Act, 2025/Loi de 2025 corrélative de la loi
intitulée The Defamation Act
Clause 1
Chair B. McLeod: — And then we will next
consider Bill No. 32, The Defamation
Consequential Amendments Act, 2025, which is a bilingual bill, beginning
with consideration of clause 1, short title. So, Minister McLeod, please make
your opening comments.
Hon. Tim McLeod: — Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My comments will be
brief. Staying with me at the table are Mr. McGovern, K.C. and Ms.
Markatos, K.C.
Simply
regarding Bill 32, The Defamation Consequential Amendments Act, 2025,
this Act amends three bilingual Acts that reference libel and slander. In each
case the Acts will be amended to refer to defamation instead of libel and
slander, as The Libel and Slander Act is being repealed and replaced
with the new defamation Act.
There is
no change in substance to any of the Acts amended by this bill. The new
defamation Act will define “defamation” to include both libel and slander,
reflecting the approach taken in most other Canadian jurisdictions as I
mentioned earlier.
Mr.
Chair, with those remarks, I welcome any questions respecting Bill 32, The
Defamation Consequential Amendments Act, 2025.
Chair B. McLeod: — Thank you, Minister. I will now open the floor to
questions. MLA Sarauer.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you, Mr. Chair. The bill before us is
administrative. I put my questions on the record in relation to the substantive
bill, so I have no further questions.
Chair B. McLeod: — Seeing no more questions, we will proceed to vote on
the clauses. Clause 1, short title, is that agreed?
Some Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair B. McLeod: — Carried.
[Clause
1 agreed to.]
[Clauses
2 to 5 inclusive agreed to.]
Chair B. McLeod: — His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of
the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, enacts as follows: The Defamation
Consequential Amendments Act, 2025, a bilingual bill.
I would ask a member to move
that we report Bill No. 32, The
Defamation Consequential Amendments Act, 2025, a bilingual bill,
without amendment. MLA Crassweller moves. Is that agreed?
Some Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair B. McLeod: — Carried. Any closing comments by the minister?
Hon. Tim McLeod: — Just briefly, Mr.
Chair, I’ll thank yourself and the committee, thank Ms. Sarauer for her
questions, and of course my wonderful team that surrounds me each and every
day.
Mr. McGovern, K.C. and Ms. Markatos, K.C., who I
think will not be straying far, as all of us I think are pitted in here for the
next couple of hours. And looking forward to that, Mr. Chair. So thank you to
everyone.
Chair B.
McLeod: — Any closing comments from members?
Nicole Sarauer: — I’d like to join with the minister in thanking
yourself, Mr. Chair, and the committee, as well as the committee staff. And
then thank you, Minister, for answering my questions and of course to your
officials for their work every day. Your chief of staff as well; I would be
remiss if I didn’t include him. Hansard and broadcast services as well,
just thank you.
Chair B.
McLeod: — Thank you very much, appreciate that. We’re
going to move directly into the next section where we’ll consideration of the
2026 estimates. Any recess or change of officials required just real quickly?
Hon. Tim McLeod: — Very briefly, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair B.
McLeod: — Okay, thank you then. We’ll just recess for a
few moments to get the officials changed up.
[The committee recessed for a period of
time.]
Chair
B. McLeod: — We will now move to
consideration of estimates and supplementary estimates no. 2 for Justice
and Attorney General and the Firearms Secretariat.
General Revenue Fund
Justice and Attorney General
Vote 3
Subvote
(JU01)
Chair
B. McLeod: — We will begin with vote
3, Justice and Attorney General, central management and services, subvote
(JU01). Now Minister McLeod is here with his officials. There are new officials,
so I’ll ask again not to touch the mikes and to identify yourselves the first
time you speak. And you can go ahead please, Minister. Make your opening
comments and recognize those sitting with you, please.
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
Well thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to provide the highlights of
the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General’s 2026‑27 budget and
financial plan and to answer any questions of the committee.
The Ministry of Justice and
Attorney General’s budget exemplifies our commitment to a fair and accessible
justice system that protects the rights of all individuals, strengthens public
safety, holds offenders accountable, and supports the well-being of families
and communities right across our province.
The courts and the provincial
justice system are fundamental pillars of our province, and ministry staff work
every day to ensure these systems serve the best interests of Saskatchewan
people. Through the ’26‑27 budget we are protecting and strengthening
these foundations, making sure Saskatchewan’s justice system is equipped to
serve a growing province.
This work directly supports
the Saskatchewan growth plan. While growth brings new opportunities, we are
also seeing rising caseloads, more complex family matters, and increased
demands upon our justice system. Our budget addresses this through strategic investments
to strengthen capacity in the justice system by adding new judges and hiring
additional prosecutors to prosecute complex provincial immigration and taxation
offences.
The Ministry of Justice and
Attorney General provides critical services to protect the vulnerable within
our society, including victims and survivors of interpersonal violence and
abuse; families that need support as a result of separation, divorce, or other
difficulties; and those who cannot independently manage their own financial
affairs. We also provide citizens with services they can use to settle
disputes, such as those offered by the Office of Residential Tenancies or the
dispute resolution office. And we ensure citizens have representation in the
justice system through agencies such as the Public Complaints Commission, the
serious incident response team, and the Highway Traffic Board.
Before
we get into specifics of the ministry’s budget, I will introduce officials who
are joining us here today. Mr. Chair, seated with me are, to my left, the
deputy minister of Justice, Kimberly Kratzig; and to my right, Deputy Attorney
General Max Bilson, K.C.
Also joining us in the room
today . . . And I will apologize in advance if I miss anyone. We do
have quite the team here today and I’m grateful for every one of them. We have
assistant deputy attorney general of justice services and tribunals, Kylie
Head, K.C.; assistant deputy attorney general of public prosecutions, Elizabeth
Hilts, K.C.; assistant deputy minister of courts and community justice, Rory
Jensen; assistant deputy minister of corporate services, Brad Gurash; Chief
Coroner of Saskatchewan, Jeffrey Wagner; executive director of legal services,
Darcy McGovern, K.C.; executive director of community safety and well-being,
Gina Alexander; executive director of financial services, Cindy Hingley; and
chief executive officer of Legal Aid Saskatchewan, Jayne Mallin.
Also joining us we have
Saskatchewan’s firearms commissioner, Blaine Beaven; deputy commissioner and
Chief Firearms Officer, Murray Cowan; executive director, corporate services,
Dan Dierker; executive advisor to the commissioner, Stephen Coote. We have chief
executive officer of the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority, Roger
Sobotkiewicz. And I will ask any officials who join us at the table to
introduce themselves first before they respond to any questions.
The overview of the budget,
Mr. Chair, is as follows. This budget aligns with our ongoing work to protect
Saskatchewan communities. In total we are investing nearly $269 million to
operate the justice system for Saskatchewan residents. This budget maintains
our commitment to a fair, accessible justice system that protects Saskatchewan
families, communities, and the provincial economy.
To ensure we are getting the
most out of our budget this year, we made target investments in increasing
capacity within the justice system, continuing our work to modernize
Saskatchewan courts, enhancing the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee as
well as the Highway Traffic Board, making the Saskatchewan child protective
service permanent, advancing interpersonal violence programs and services,
providing a financial lift to our community-based partner organizations, and
increasing funding for the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission. I will briefly
provide more specifics on each of these categories before we move on to
questions.
Starting with increasing
capacity within our justice system. As our population grows, the need for
justice services grows right along with it. In recent years we have seen an
increased need for the judicial positions to handle increasing caseloads in both
the Provincial Court and the Court of King’s Bench. To ensure that our courts
continue to operate smoothly, we will be investing $1.97 million to add
capacity to our judiciary. This will include the addition of three new judges
to the Provincial Court who will be appointed later this year. The addition of
these judges will increase the capacity of the Provincial Court and ensure
cases are resolved in a fair, just, and timely fashion.
[16:15]
Similarly we will be
appointing four new associate judges to the Court of King’s Bench. These
positions will also be appointed later this year to take on routine procedural
matters currently being handled by Court of King’s Bench justices. This will
balance the judicial workload, improve scheduling flexibility, and support
faster resolution of cases. We will also be hiring six new justices of the
peace to provide independent adjudication of major inmate discipline hearings
in Saskatchewan correctional centres. This is in accordance with the recent
decision by the Supreme Court of Canada.
This year’s budget also
includes a targeted investment of $400,000 in our public prosecutions division
to hire two Crown prosecutors, who will specialize in prosecuting complex
provincial immigration and taxation offences. These positions will protect the
economic integrity of our province, improve enforcement and compliance with
provincial legislation, and support public safety.
Next I’ll speak to the court
modernization. As we increase capacity in the judiciary and prosecutions, we
must also ensure that court infrastructure keeps pace with the ongoing
evolution of the justice system and the modern expectations of our population.
To ensure Saskatchewan’s courts remain safe and accessible, we are dedicating $3 million
to fund essential repairs, safety upgrades, detention improvements, and overall
courthouse functionality across Saskatchewan. This funding is essential to
address rising caseloads, the growing volume of remote appearances, and the
increasing strain of completing jury trials, which are becoming more complex
within the timelines mandated by the Supreme Court of Canada under the Jordan
decision.
Specific initiatives being
pursued this year include the ongoing implementation of electronic filing and
the public-facing portal through the J-STAR [judicial scheduling, tracking and
amalgamated reporting] system, necessary IT [information technology] upgrades
for the judiciary, and planning for a provincial court scheduling system.
Additional infrastructure improvements being made this year include detention
area upgrades, distress button systems, and accessibility enhancements.
Next to address the Public
Guardian and Trustee and the Highway Traffic Board investments. In addition to
adding core justice system personnel and improving courthouse infrastructure,
we are also making investments in critical services provided through those two
agencies. The Highway Traffic Board, which is responsible for hearing appeals
to SGI [Saskatchewan Government Insurance] and regulating transportation safety
on Saskatchewan roads, will receive approximately $1.315 million in new
capital funding to build a new IT portal to replace manual processes and
provide citizens with secure user-friendly online access. This new system will
be implemented over a period of two years, with the cost being split between
the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General and SGI.
The Office of the Public
Guardian and Trustee will also see its funding increase this year by $326,000,
which will be used to add four new positions. Once in place, these staff will
be responsible for protecting the financial resources of vulnerable children
and adults as well as the estates of deceased persons. The work of the Public
Guardian and Trustee is essential for individuals who are unable to manage
their own financial affairs and do not have a trusted family member or guardian
to otherwise act on their behalf.
Turning now to the child
support calculation service. Since it was established in 2018, the child
support calculation service has provided parents with an effective, more
user-friendly alternative than going to court to get clarity around child
support payments. In 2023 this program was expanded to allow parents to
calculate initial child support payments without having to go to court at all.
In addition to providing a more efficient and cost-effective option for
parents, the child support calculation service also lowers conflict levels and
provides families with critical support and resources during what can often be
a very challenging time.
While this program started as
a pilot project in partnership with the federal government, this year we will
be transitioning the service to a fully provincially funded model through an
investment of $170,000. While most provinces and territories have a recalculation
service, Saskatchewan is only the third province to develop the additional
calculation service. We are proud to be able to transition this important
program to a fully provincially funded model, ensuring that it will be
available to Saskatchewan parents and children on a permanent, ongoing basis.
Next to speak to
interpersonal violence programs, supports, and tools, Mr. Chair. Our government
has a strong track record of providing support for individuals who are affected
by interpersonal violence. Issues such as domestic violence, sexual assault, and
human trafficking are an ongoing concern across Canada, and certainly
Saskatchewan is no exception.
A significant amount of this
money is provided to community agencies to provide targeted services to reduce
the impact of victimization, the likelihood of re-victimization, and the number
of interpersonal violence and abuse incidents overall.
The agencies we partner with
provide a wide spectrum of programming for survivors of abuse, including
transition houses, second-stage housing, sexual violence services, and
transportation.
This funding also includes
investments to programs and tools designed to address interpersonal violence
before it starts, such as family violence intervention programming, family
intervention rapid support teams, and education and awareness programs and campaigns.
Turning now to the CBO
[community-based organization] lift, to help our community-based partners
continue to provide these vital programs and services, the ministry’s ’26‑27
budget includes an increase of $440,000 or 2 per cent for community-based
organizations that are funded by the ministry.
The majority of this funding,
412,000 to be exact, will be dedicated to organizations that work to address
the impact of interpersonal violence and abuse. The remaining $28,000 is shared
by community partners who support the delivery of the Aboriginal court worker
program and the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations special
investigations unit.
We value the work of all of
our community-based organizations and stakeholders, and we look forward to
continuing our important work with them in the year ahead.
The Saskatchewan Human Rights
Commission. Saskatchewan has a strong record of protecting and supporting human
rights through our ongoing commitment to human rights legislation and our
continued support of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission. The commission
protects and promotes human rights and advances equality for all Saskatchewan
people, and provides a free complaint process for everyone to access to bring
forward their concerns about discrimination or human rights offences.
As Saskatchewan’s population
grows and becomes more diverse, the demand for human rights education,
outreach, and complaint resolution will continue to increase along with it. To
prepare for this and ensure the commission can continue its ongoing mission to
protect the rights of Saskatchewan people, we will be providing $500,000 in new
operating funding.
Additionally this year’s
budget includes $1.5 million in one-time capital funding to relocate the
commission’s office to a new building, which will address space issues and
allow them to better serve the needs of the public.
In closing, the Ministry of
Justice and Attorney General is well positioned to meet its goals and mandate
in 2026‑27. We look forward to continuing our work with the courts, our
community partners, other ministries, and to protect the public access to the
justice services, promoting accountability and increasing public safety across
our province.
The funding for the 2026‑27
fiscal year will ensure that Saskatchewan continues to have a fair, accessible,
and equitable justice system. I would now be pleased to answer any questions
about the budget and the business plan for the Ministry of Justice and Attorney
General. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you, Minister. I
will now open the floor to questions. And I recognize MLA Sarauer.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister, for your opening comments. I
just want to start — before I go into questions about the various announcements
that you have made in your discussions and your opening remarks — with an
overall question regarding the budget of Justice and Attorney General. You’ve
mentioned some new programs and some new investments that are happening;
however the estimated budget is a reduction from ’25‑26. So can you
please explain what has either been cut or reduced in terms of funding from
your ministry this budget year?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
Thank you for the question, and I’m going to speak to kind of a high-level
answer to the question, and then I’ll let Deputy Minister Kimberly Kratzig get
into a little more detail.
But to address the concern,
there haven’t been services cut from the budget. What actually happened was $6.6 million
of our previous budget was transferred for enterprise IT costs to the Ministry
of SaskBuilds and Procurement. A budget item was moved to a different ministry,
which shows a corresponding reduction in the overall budget, but it wasn’t a
cut of services. It was simply a transfer of those IT services being moved to
the Ministry of SaskBuilds and Procurement. And that was the primary reduction.
There was also a $1.4 million
decrease in non-statutory salaries as part of the workforce realignment, but no
job losses. No individuals lost their job as a result of that. But I’ll let
Deputy Minister Kratzig get into more detail about that.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Thank you. I think that, you know, the minister really did summarize. In
addition to all of the investments that the minister spoke about in his opening
remarks, those were the two primary reductions that we talked about. There’s a
few other sort of what I would call ins and outs of monies that we could walk
through for you if you’re interested in knowing exactly what came in and out of
the budget.
Would you like that level of
detail? They’re lower amounts, and again they don’t . . . There’s no
service reductions or anything associated with them. But I could do that if
you’re interested or you have some questions about these larger ones.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Do any of them involve staff reductions?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— No. There’s no staff reductions. We did have three FTEs [full-time
equivalent] that did move to the Ministry of Community Safety, and that was
just more of the rebasing of the work that sort of happened around some changes
that were made a couple of years ago. So that was done.
And as the minister said, the
workforce realignment that we’ve discussed, that is being done without any
impacts on individuals. That is being done through attrition as we look at
efficiencies. As people are leaving the ministry, we’ll be reviewing each position
to meet that target.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Tell me a little bit more about the workforce realignment, where you’re hoping
to find those efficiencies.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Thank you. So in terms of where we’re hoping to find the efficiencies, I
think that we’re looking really throughout the entire ministry. We know that
the province has instructed that there will not be an impact on front-line
services, so that’s certainly a lens as we’re making decisions around the
positions that we will be reducing.
We’ll be looking for
efficiencies throughout all areas of the ministry though. And all positions
that are being staffed will be sort of coming through our senior team, and
we’ll be looking at them and having discussions with our various levels of the
organization to determine, you know, what the impact is. Can we do things
differently? So we’re very confident we will be able to meet the reduction
target without any impact on front-line services.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Do you have an estimate of how many FTEs $1.4 million in reductions will
mean?
[16:30]
Kimberly Kratzig:
— For our ministry, our reduction target is 44.5 FTEs over two years. So we
have about 1,145 positions, so we feel that we’ll be able to again really do
that in a responsible way that will not impact front-line services as
individuals are leaving our workforce, whether it be moving to other places,
retiring, whatever that might be. We’ll be assessing which of those positions
could form this target over two years.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Can you explain this $6.6 million that was transferred to SaskBuilds and
Procurement?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Sure. So the $6.6 million reduction that’s being transferred to
SaskBuilds and Procurement is an across-government change to the funding model
for IT. There’s no change to the services that are being provided. But
SaskBuilds and Procurement provides a range of services to all ministries, so
they’ve changed the funding model. So instead of billing us for those services,
we’ve given back the money — in our case, $6.6 million. Examples of that
might be things like IT security charges or service desk, that type of thing
that’s done across all ministries.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. Now, Minister, you’ve discussed that there will be the appointing of
four new associate judges, three new Provincial Court judges, and six new
justices of the peace. Which line item of the budget would their expenses be
coming out of, just so that I can see it in the Estimates?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
Looking at page 88 of the Estimates under courts and civil justice, (JU03), the
allocations are all broken down there: salaries for Provincial Court judges;
salaries for King’s Bench associate judges; salaries for justices of the peace;
as well as family justice services; dispute resolution; and court facility
land, buildings, and improvements.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. You have $390,000 allocated for the new associate judge positions.
Could you explain to the committee how much each associate judge is going to be
paid?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
So the initial compensation will be aligned with the compensation framework for
justices of the peace, reflecting a similar supportive judicial function
performed by associate judges. Their work to a King’s Bench justice will be
comparable to what a Justice of the Peace work for a Provincial Court judge
will be.
In terms of their specific
compensation, their duties as assigned, we’re still in conversation with the
Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench to align the appropriate work for
these positions. And that in turn will ultimately impact the compensation. But
generally speaking the compensation will align with the same framework that we
use for justices of the peace at the Provincial Court level.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
So when you say it’ll be the same framework, will they be paid the same as a
Justice of the Peace? Or has that not been ironed out yet because the scope of
the duties hasn’t been ironed out quite yet?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
I guess what I can say is that the $390,000 that’s listed in the estimates is
built around a mid-year start and based upon a Justice of the Peace salary. The
specifics of the pay structure and the details around these positions will of
course appear in the legislation that hasn’t yet been tabled but will be tabled
shortly.
Nicole Sarauer: — Are you able to provide the
committee any information as to how these associate judges will be appointed?
What will the process be?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
I would say, similarly, the appointment process will be better articulated in
the legislation, and I’m keen to avoid speaking too detailed about legislation
that isn’t yet on the table. However we can say that they would be appointed
through a similar process using an order in council and again in close
consultation with the Chief Justice of the court.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Do you know yet where these associate judges will be located in the province?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
The location of the specific positions is ultimately a determination made by
the Chief Justice. However I can anticipate that, given that the nature of
these positions is to support some of our busiest court points. Saskatoon and
Regina tend to be the heaviest load for family services and the civil matters
that are likely to be addressed most directly by these new positions.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. Will there be any
other additional supports provided to the courts for these associate judges?
I’m thinking clerks, office space, that sort of thing. And if so, how much has
been budgeted for that?
Rory
Jensen: —
Rory Jensen, assistant
deputy minister, courts and community justice. Thank you for the question.
In
this budget we did not include additional amounts as we believe that the
infrastructure and support staff can be absorbed in the existing complement. We
believe that we have office space for the additional associate judges and
existing staff in the courthouses that we can provide the support.
Nicole Sarauer: — One of the challenges I hear with respect to pressure
is related to court time, access to court facilities. Do you feel like this
will help address those concerns? And how?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
The creation of these positions is largely to alleviate some of the pressure
that we’re seeing on our King’s Bench judges, taking away some of the routine
matters, some of the Chamber’s matters off of their plate to allow them to
focus their attention on the more complex matters, giving them more time to
write their decisions on those complex matters, which of course more and more
detail is being included in those decisions.
The access-to-court time, we
are largely hearing, is more of an issue at the Provincial Court level which is
why we’ve established the bylaw and traffic courts in Rosthern and Fort
Qu’Appelle. Again pulling some of the matters out of the busier court points
like Saskatoon and Regina, allowing those municipalities for their bylaw
matters and their traffic matters to be heard in a different court point;
pulling those out of the busier courtrooms, again creating the space and
availability of the courtrooms in the Provincial Court.
These associate judge
positions are really about alleviating more of the work off of the workload of
the King’s Bench justices.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. On the Provincial Court you had mentioned that there will be an
appointment of three new Provincial Court judges. Can you indicate where they
will be located?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
Similarly, ultimately the location of those appointments will be at the
discretion of the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court. However we would
anticipate again that they will be targeted to alleviate the pressures in the
busier court points.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Similarly will there be the addition of the hiring of any clerks? Is there any
firm or office space? Any of that additional expense, has that been
contemplated this budget cycle? And if so, how much?
[16:45]
Rory Jensen:
— So similar to associate judges, we do believe that within the existing budget
allotment we do have, we can absorb any additional infrastructure or staff
needs to support the appointment of the new judges for Provincial Court. In the
existing budget appropriation we have just over $1.2 million for capital
work within courthouses across the province.
So when we’re evaluating how
that money will be distributed, we meet with all three levels of court to
determine their prioritization of their needs and what they would like to see
addressed. So this is a really collaborative conversation between the ministry
and the levels of court.
In conversations that we’ve
had recently with Chief Judge Metivier since the budget, she has indicated that
she would like to earmark some of that money to ensure that we can develop any
judicial officers in courthouses to make sure that we have appropriate officers
for new appointments as well as meet the needs of the judiciary going forward
as we implement and make new appointments.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. As has been
mentioned, there is a significant challenge in terms of pressures of the court
at the provincial level. Obviously the appointment of these three new judges is
reflective of that. Similar to what I asked at the King’s Bench level, there is
no increase in court facility space, but can you explain whether or not this
will help deal with the pressures around court facility access right now that
is being felt in the justice system?
Rory
Jensen: —
Thank you for the question. The three additional judges will help increase
access for communities to courts. One of the benefits of having these new
judicial appointments: the court will become less reliant on relief judges who,
as you may be aware, are retired judges that really will determine when they
would like to work. By having full-time appointments, they will be better able
for scheduling to ensure resources are available for less cancellations of
court.
Other things that we’re also
working on: as the minister mentioned, the bylaw hubs that are being
implemented will be overheard by a senior Justice of the Peace. These will
expand the availability of communities to access the court system instead of
having their bylaw matters grouped in with a general docket. They will have
dedicated time. By separating these out, we also free up judicial resources for
judges to focus on the more complex cases and allow senior justices of the
peace to do their work and oversee bylaw matters.
We’re also continuing to
focus and invest in video appearances in court. So right now approximately 30
per cent of all appearances in court are heard by video or virtual matters.
We’re also working closely with Provincial Court and Court of King’s Bench on
making sure that virtual appearance has gone streamlined and efficiently, so
when the judiciary and court is expecting a person to appear, that they will
appear and also that those options are available to citizens to have their
matters heard through virtual options.
By doing this, we’re really
going to be serving citizens to meet them where their needs are. We’re also
going to be . . . One of the benefits of this is also really creating
more, increasing community safety. Because as we can have increased virtual
appearances, we’re less reliant on prisoner transport to bring in-person
matters. So there’s more policing, and RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] are
able to focus on front-line policing work instead of supporting bringing
prisoners to court.
And also by adding additional
judicial resources, similar to the associate judges for King’s Bench, it will
allow . . . By having additional judicial resources, there will be
more time for the judges to write decisions, while we still maintain making
sure that courtrooms . . . we’re maximizing and using space
efficiently to make sure that matters continue to be heard and their decisions
are completed in a very timely manner.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. Now you’ve mentioned that there will be the hiring of two new Crown
prosecutors to focus on immigration and taxation matters. Can you explain to
the committee why this was seen as a targeted need?
Max
Bilson: —
Thank you. Max Bilson,
deputy attorney general. At a very broad, high
level and broad strokes, the positions are necessary to assist with the
enforcement of laws in Saskatchewan to ensure the integrity of our immigration
system in the province and in the country. And also on the taxation side to
ensure the integrity of the tax system and the collection of tax and the
fairness of tax for people of the province.
And I think my colleague
Elizabeth Hilts can speak to the details of the actual prosecution.
Elizabeth Hilts:
— Sure, thank you. Elizabeth Hilts, assistant deputy attorney general, public
prosecutions. So we made the request for these two prosecutors just because of
the very specialized nature of the work. The provincial legislation as it
relates to immigration and as it relates to provincial taxes is not something
that we would deal with on a regular, day-to-day basis. And tax law can have a
lot of ins and outs. And so we think it’s important for proper prosecutions
that we have people in place who can become specialists in that particular area
of tax work. And the same is really the case for the immigration work.
The integrity of that
legislation obviously depends on people having confidence on where there are
people who are not following it, that they will be held accountable, and for us
to have prosecutors that are able to take the cases to court to ensure that
people are held properly accountable.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Now please correct me if I’m wrong, but when I look at the line item for public
prosecutions in the Estimates document, it’s actually a slight decrease from
last year. So can you explain how you’re hiring two new prosecutors, yet the
budget appears to be decreasing?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— I can explain that, sure. So we are hiring two new prosecutors. It is a
$400,000 investment. We also do have a decrease in the budget line. What we did
when we received the workforce alignment target that we talked about earlier —
the $1.4 million — we allocated it across all votes in the Ministry of
Justice. They will not turn out that way, and if you actually look you’ll see
some very small reductions across different areas of the Ministry of Justice.
We don’t know where people
will be leaving from. We don’t know if those are positions that will be
replaced or not. So we had to allocate the money in a fair way, so that’s what
you’ll see across the entire budget.
[17:00]
And as the year goes on, we
of course have the ability to move the money back and forth. So the percentage
of workforce reduction target in prosecutions, that’s the decrease that you’re
seeing.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
So I hear what you’re saying is that there hasn’t been a decrease in the level
of prosecutors at this time, but there is the possibility that there will be a
reduction in prosecutors in the next two years.
Kimberly
Kratzig: —
I think how I would answer that is similar to how I answered it earlier. We
will be looking at every position. We will be doing everything we can to not
impact front-line services and services that are in high demand and high need.
And as you see, we’ve made the investment of two new FTEs; government has
decided this is a priority. So when you see the reduction in the budget in
prosecutions, I would call that a placeholder, and you’ll see that throughout
our budget. Those are just where the reductions were applied on very much a
pro-rated basis based on the budget of each area. So that was a decision that
was made internally.
We had to park, if you will,
the 1.4 million, and that’s how we did it. But there has been no reduction
in the number of prosecutors; in fact we are increasing the number of
prosecutors.
Nicole Sarauer: — You’ve indicated that there
will be continued investment of the J-STAR program as well as some courthouse
improvements. Can you provide some details as to what those courthouse
improvements look like and where we’re at with the J-STAR program?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
So I’ll start, and then I’ll pass things over to Rory Jensen.
Essentially
the budget is providing a little over $1.2 million in ongoing
court-maintenance-based capital to support essential repairs, safety upgrades,
detention improvements, and courthouse functionality. The budget also includes
just shy of $1.8 million for court modernization initiatives such as
courtroom technology, the J-STAR electronic filing implementation that you were
asking about, judicial IT upgrades, and planning for a provincial court
scheduling system and further eCourt development. This investment supports the
safety, security, and technology performance in our courthouses that operate at
a very high capacity and have ever-increasing caseload pressures.
I
think what I’ll do is I’ll turn it over to Rory Jensen to maybe get into more
specifics about each of those categories.
Rory Jensen: — Thank you, Minister. So for
the J-STAR project, we’re right now in the development phase, so we’re working
with the vendor on what would be determined as sprints and testing. So we’ve
done a number of sprints to get certain pieces of the functionality ready, and
we’ve done testing on those. We are on progress and making . . .
right now on the development schedule for implementation later this year.
So that’ll be a really big
milestone for the Court of King’s Bench as the public-facing portal will really
modernize how the court interacts, how their case management system works, and
how they interact with the public and accept electronic filing, which will be a
big step forward for the court.
In terms of investments in
the court, we’re making some targeted investments in La Ronge and Saskatoon as
well as working with the judiciary, as I mentioned earlier, to really target
those investments throughout the year. We’re talking with all courthouses and
resident judges to determine what the security needs of each courthouse is to
make sure that, as we use this funding, that it’s really addressing the highest
priority and the highest needs where it’s going to benefit the province and the
court system the most.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Just to clarify, you’re saying that there is in the works an electronic filing
system for King’s Bench that will be public facing and will be launching?
Rory Jensen:
— Yes. So a number of years ago the Court of King’s Bench implemented what is
called the J-STAR system. So that’s their case management system. Right now we
are in phase 2 of that. And the big push on phase 2 is really a public-facing
portal that will allow for electronic filing of documents as well as just
complete case management for the judiciary to see all matters that have been
filed within a case in a nice electronic system. As well as creating efficiency
for when a case needs to move from one court location to another, that that
file can go with it electronically instead of packing up paper files and
driving them to the next community where that court matter is going to be
heard.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Any idea when the public-facing side of that will be available?
Rory Jensen:
— For the project, we are scheduled to implement that later this fiscal year.
Nicole Sarauer: — Now I heard you say eCourt
development. That brings me to my evergreen question about the e-justice
project and its continual pause. Could you provide any information as to what
the status of that project is?
Rory Jensen: — Thank you for the question.
The provincial budget, the budget includes a focus on court modernization. So
there is a lot of investments being made into IT systems throughout all levels
of court. As you mentioned the eCourt system, the Court of Appeal has been
using the eCourt system since 2012. We continue to invest to help them enhance
and modernize their system to ensure that they are still on the leading edge of
court technology in the country.
We’re making similar
investments with J-STAR to bring Court of King’s Bench in Saskatchewan up to a
similar level of the Court of Appeal. So J-STAR is going to be, as we
mentioned, have a public-facing portal, which will be very similar to eCourt,
who also accepts online filing and electronic filing. So bringing Court of
King’s Bench up to speed on that as well as allowing the systems to
communicate. So as files flow through between the levels of court, the citizens
going through the systems have more of a seamless transition. So that’s a
really positive investment.
The other investment in this
budget is for Provincial Court as we look at exploring a case management system
and a modern case management system for that level of court to really transform
the technology used at all three levels of court.
[17:15]
We also continue to invest
across all levels of court, as I mentioned earlier, in virtual court, expanding
the use of video court technology to have courts run more efficiently, improve
community safety.
We’re really making a lot of
investments across the various courts in conjunction with all levels of courts.
So we meet quarterly to determine what the courts’ priorities are and help them
understand their needs in the IT sector to make sure that we’re keeping them up
to speed with where changes in technology are going, where they would like to
move their courts, and how they can use their courts and get the most efficient
use out of technology in each level of court.
Specific for the e-justice
program, the e-justice program project was made up of two different parts.
There was one part related to the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority that
was implemented and is up and running. The other phase was the provincial
offence phase. That project is paused, but we still maintain all of the
background support, so if we do want to pick that up and implement that, we
still maintain all of that infrastructure with that project.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Any plan this fiscal in unpausing that project?
Rory
Jensen: —
We are working with all levels of courts to prioritize their needs for the use
of technology.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
How much is budgeted on maintaining that project in this fiscal?
Rory
Jensen: —
The amount to maintain that system is $10,000.
Nicole Sarauer: — Last year I asked for the
total to-date cost at that time of the e-justice project. I requested it. I had
not received it. Does the ministry have that number today, but updated to this
date? And if so, could you please provide it?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
Thanks for the question. We’ve actually had that question before. As you noted,
in fact, it was one of your written questions in the fall. Question 61 was
answered and tabled on November the 6th, 2025 where you asked that question.
The tabled answer was that the e-justice project to date at that point was a
little over $6.6 million. Of course that was as of about October of 2025,
so it could be updated to current date by adding about $10,000.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. It helps me to find it for next year if it’s in this Hansard.
Appreciate it.
Mr.
Jensen, you had mentioned a few times the bylaw and traffic safety court hub
announcements that were made last year. Could you provide an update on the
status of those two court hubs?
Rory Jensen:
— Thank you for the question. The municipal bylaw hubs in Rosthern and Fort
Qu’Appelle are up and running. We’ve been working closely with the Chief Judge,
and we anticipate that in the coming months, traffic safety court will also be
expanded to Rosthern and Fort Qu’Appelle.
As I mentioned, working with
the Chief Judge and communities to ensure their awareness is out there, to take
advantage of these additional court opportunities for communities, we do
anticipate that the uptake in the utilization of these courts will increase as
awareness continues to build with communities.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thanks. What does it look
like for those courts in those locations operationally?
Rory
Jensen: —
So these bylaw courts really operate similar to any other docket. The docket is
focused on bylaw matters for communities. The province is providing the Justice
of the Peace that overhears that and the administrative staff for communities
to ensure that the court runs efficiently.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
What is the current status of the Indigenous court project that will be based
out of Saskatoon?
Rory
Jensen: —
The Provincial Court is really leading an investigation into and development of
an Indigenous court pilot in Saskatoon. The initiative is designed to operate
similar to existing therapeutic courts with a focus on healing-centred
sentencing, Elder guidance, and really community-based supports. The work has
begun. There has been consultation with communities, Elder engagement,
development of some initial framework. The province is working very closely
with the court to establish what that framework and how the operations of the
court will look when it is ready to begin sitting.
[17:30]
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Is there a timeline for when it is projected it will begin sitting?
Rory Jensen:
— We do not have a specific timeline right now.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. Is there any
budget this year for the Economic Impact Assessment Tribunal?
Kylie
Head: —
Thank you for the question. Oh, my name is Kylie Head, and I am assistant deputy attorney general
with the Ministry of Justice, specifically responsible for justice services and
tribunal division.
In
the current fiscal year, the cost of operating the Economic Impact Assessment
Tribunal is $44,000, which is the cost of paying the retainers for the five
tribunal members who were appointed to a three-year term. The funds for that
are in the justice services and tribunal division line, which is on page 89 of
the Estimates book.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. Is there any work planned for the tribunal
this fiscal so far?
Kylie
Head: —
No.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. It wouldn’t be
Justice estimates if I didn’t ask my other evergreen question, which is the
total cost to date for the ongoing litigation between UR Pride and the
Government of Saskatchewan. If you could just provide that for the committee
please.
Max Bilson: — Thank you. Max Bilson, deputy attorney general again. As we’ve
said in previous years, it’s not our policy to waive the privilege over the
amounts paid in individual ongoing litigation files. Though obviously those
amounts are aggregated and in future will appear in public accounts as an
aggregated amount with the amounts that are spent on civil litigation in the
province and are public. But we do assert privilege over the specific amounts
paid on ongoing litigation files.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. And just as a reminder — I know we’ve discussed this before, but to the
committee — it is a privilege that could be waived by the
government. They are choosing not to waive it. Is that correct?
Hon. Tim McLeod: — It’s a matter of protecting the interests of the
people of Saskatchewan in terms of the litigation itself. Disclosing the
specific amounts for any individual file does potentially compromise the
strength of one’s case. We’re not prepared to do that.
Nicole Sarauer: — Now as you well know, Minister, the notwithstanding
clause that’s subject to litigation will sunset in 2028, at which point the
government will need to make a decision whether or not they will essentially
renew the clause or discontinue, which would end the litigation of course. Do
you not feel that the public has a right to know how much this litigation has
cost it when making the analysis as to whether or not the notwithstanding
clause should be renewed?
Hon. Tim McLeod: — I would say that that
question could be answered when the litigation is concluded. But on an active
litigation matter, disclosing the solicitor-client fees are a matter of
privilege for good reason.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
And also just for clarity, as has been mentioned, that the aggregated cost will
be reflected in public accounts. That number is a total cost that’s paid to the
third-party law firm for all legal services and not just this specific
litigation; is that correct?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
Correct.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. Minister, I
understand there’s an ongoing gender-based violence engagement session
happening right now. Can you explain how much is budgeted for this project? I
believe KPMG has been contracted to do this work.
Hon.
Tim McLeod: — Just for clarity, you’re talking about
the development of theory of change model?
Nicole
Sarauer: — I understand that there have been
consultations happening throughout the province conducted by KPMG on behalf of
your ministry related to gender-based violence. That’s all I know. So I’m
curious to know what that project is, broadly speaking, and how much is being
spent on it.
Hon.
Tim McLeod: — Thank you for the clarity. We just have
multiple investments in this space, on reducing gender-based violence, so we
just wanted to make sure we’re talking about the same one.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Thank you for the question. I’ll start with the answer and then turn it over
to Gina Alexander, our executive director from community safety and well-being
branch.
[17:45]
The Ministry of Justice did a
call for proposals to develop a theory of change model to help inform how we
approach gender-based violence. So that is what you’re referring to. Now I’ll
talk about those two stages that are happening. One is to support the service
map to develop, identify, categorize all the various services that are
happening in Saskatchewan related to gender-based violence. And then there’s
also research that outlines the reasons behind the high rates of gender-based
violence in Saskatchewan. So it’s a two-stage project. They were the successful
vendor. They’ve been awarded the contract in October; it expires later this
year.
I’ll turn it over to Gina to
talk about why that is a priority under the national action plan, what pillar
that aligns with, why we think that this was an important investment to help us
really understand I think at a very basic level exactly what’s happening in the
gender-based violence space, and hearing from our stakeholders to understand
what they would tell us we could do to better make some progress on this very
important issue.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Sorry, just before Ms. Alexander speaks, can you also tell us how much the
contract was for?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Yeah, it’s $258,000.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you.
Gina Alexander:
— Gina Alexander, executive director of community safety and well-being,
Ministry of Justice. So just to follow up on what the deputy minister has
already talked about, we think this is important for us to map out where the
services are that are currently located so that we can get a sense of what’s
happening across the province. And we can get a sense of not only where in the
province these services are located, but also what other measures might be
implemented at a later date once we discover where those services are.
The Ministry of Justice and
some other ministries have a number of services. When we engage with
stakeholders, this allows us to explore services that we may not know about
that are in existence, that are operating quite well, that may not be funded by
the provincial government, may be funded by municipal governments, may be
funded by the federal government that we may not know about. So that’s in
reference to the first stage that was awarded to KPMG. So get the lay of the
land. Figure out what’s out there.
And then the second phase of
this particular project is to, as the deputy said, research — research that
outlines the reasons behind the high rates of gender-based violence in
Saskatchewan. So what’s happening out there? What’s happening on the ground that
service providers, communities, partners are noticing that we can all benefit
from as we figure out what we do next in terms of good practice and
evidence-based practice approaches? And it will also start to confirm where
things are going well and maybe where there are some gaps and how we might work
to fill those gaps. And this particular item falls within the foundation pillar
of the national action plan to end gender-based violence. So that’s the fit
which the deputy minister referred to.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Will phase 2 of this project be a report that’s made public?
Gina
Alexander: —
So this particular work has not been designed at this point to make its way to
a public report. But like all engagements that we have on a very frequent basis
with stakeholders and partners that we are connected with, sometimes several
times a year, the feedback from this work and also the ongoing work from the
stakeholders that we work with will continue to inform our decisions as we move
forward.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Will the report be shared with the stakeholders who participated?
Gina
Alexander: —
There may be points or summaries that might be shared with the stakeholders.
Nicole Sarauer: — And how will these
recommendations differ from the recommendations made in the last two domestic
violence death review reports?
Gina Alexander:
— So domestic violence death review reviewed files of homicide and death from
2015 to 2020, and the focus was on, of course, the serious outcomes related to
that. A number of their recommendations pay attention to and inform us to look
to prevention and also intervention, but the focus is on how do we stop the
level of violence that results in homicides and these types of deaths.
The focus on the domestic
violence death reviews included just looking at those files by three groups of
folks who are experts in domestic violence across the province. And we had a
group in and representing northern Saskatchewan, a group in and representing
rural Saskatchewan, and then a group in and representing urban Saskatchewan,
and the focus of that was about those particular files.
Different than that, on the
focus of the national action plan funding and the continued work that the
ministry does in terms of a number of areas of interpersonal violence and
abuse, this work that we have contracted with KPMG to do will be looking much broader
than at the instances of domestic violence that have resulted in death. And
part of what we will be able to do is not only take the recommendations from
focusing on those files in the domestic violence death review but also the work
by KPMG from the federal funding that will allow us to look more broadly than
just on the more serious matters that occur in our province.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. Could you speak
at all to the RFP [request for proposal] process that was engaged where KPMG
was awarded with this project? Are you able to provide the committee
information as to how many other organizations bid on the project?
Gina
Alexander: —
I don’t have the level of detail which you’ve requested on this particular
request for proposals. What I can offer today is that the procurement processes
that we use in the community safety and well-being branch follow closely the
procurement processes that are utilized by SaskBuilds. And it’s an open and
transparent process. You may know this. It appears on SaskTenders so agencies
and individuals can see it. They’re typically open for somewhere between a
month to six weeks, maybe up until two months. I don’t know the exact time
frame that this particular one was open for. I don’t recall that at this point.
And then an assessment of the
submissions is done by an evaluation team, and from there a successful
proponent is chosen based on a rating system that is utilized. And the rating
system involves analysis around the agency’s or individual’s capacity, their
efforts and experience with collaboration, their experience and knowledge and
skills and abilities around the particular topic, how they’ve demonstrated in
the proposal their ability to achieve the outcomes which we always have in the
request for proposals and procurement processes through our branch.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
I’m just being cognizant of the time. I’m going to move on and ask about the
experiential learning program at the College of Law that the ministry provides
$100,000 for. Would you provide to the committee how many students accessed the
program last year and where they were all placed?
[18:00]
Kylie
Head: —
Thank you for the question. For this past academic year, there were two
students placed at Legal Aid. One was working in The Battlefords area office
and the other was in the Prince Albert area office. Additionally students at Legal
Aid were given the opportunity to work in the North for a few weeks and have
that experience as well, so travelling up to northern area offices. We also had
two students that were placed in the prosecutions offices, one in North
Battleford and one in Meadow Lake.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
What are the plans for placements this upcoming fiscal?
Kylie
Head: —
I spoke with the dean at the College of Law, Martin Phillipson, and the
associate dean there as well. And because the placements are based on student
interest and what community they want to go to, we’re not able to answer that
with specificity at this time.
I know they are working on
getting interest in some other communities, such as Yorkton was one of the
centres they mentioned to me. But we’re not able to give you a specific number
until registration starts in sort of September or October.
Nicole Sarauer: — When this program was
originally announced, there was a lot of conversation about . . . The
minister at the time mentioned that there would be placement opportunities in
the private sector as well. I’m not hearing that there were placements in the
private sector last year. Can you explain what happened with those ambitions?
Kylie Head:
— So our contribution towards the private sector is that we pay the main costs
of administration for the overall program at the College of Law. So part of the
$100,000 covers the cost of the sessional lecturers because students are
required, when they do these placements, to attend a sessional lecturer class
at the college, a seminar class. And so we have one that’s in the first
semester and one that’s in the second semester for those students.
And we’re also paying sort of
the central administration fees for getting the program up and running. There’s
some evaluation costs, those sorts of things. So the money that the government
is providing is sort of the backbone for the program overall.
But when the private sector
wants a student to be placed in their individual firm, they would pay the costs
for that student. If there was a student to go rent accommodations, etc., and
live in another community, that would be up to the host who is working with
them in that particular community.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
To your knowledge, were there any placements other than the ones that you have
mentioned within the program, and if so, where?
Kylie Head:
— Yes. I’m sorry, I don’t have the complete list of what happened at the
College of Law, but they did talk to me about it and there were quite a number
of different placements. Some of the ones that I remember were the
administration office right on the campus at the College of Law. I think there
was like some mining-type firms, sort of some of the . . . I can’t
remember for sure if it was Cameco or if it was someone else. So I don’t want
to misspeak, but there were other companies that did have student placements
with them.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
So just to clarify, there were placements that occurred outside of prosecutions
and Legal Aid within this program? They just weren’t funded by the ministry?
Kylie Head:
— Yes. The only contribution from the ministry would be those main
administrative costs at the college.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. How much money is
budgeted to CLASSIC [Community Legal Assistance Services for Saskatoon Inner
City Inc.] by the ministry this year?
Kylie Head:
— So there’s no money in the budget currently targeted for CLASSIC. The
transition to this newer program was done in consultation with the College of
Law. There was a conversation that the ministry had funded CLASSIC for multiple
decades to this point.
The dean at the college
expressed some interest in having diversity in programming. There were concerns
that some students didn’t want to necessarily be in a poverty law clinic
setting, so they would like the opportunity to do other things, have other opportunities
to participate.
The other main point of
discussion was that it’s very difficult to attract lawyers to rural
Saskatchewan. This is the same for the private sector as it is for the public
sector. And if we could get students to be interested in and experience living
in some of these smaller centres prior to graduation, they might be willing to
stay and article there. And that’s actually what we found, is that both
prosecutions and Legal Aid have attracted articling students out of this
investment.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
That part of it is great news to hear. Of course CLASSIC is an important
institution within the College of Law, and having a clinical law program is
incredibly important for comparison to other law schools across the country, as
you all well know. Hearing what you’re saying, as we know that there will be a
change in leadership at the college this summer, if the new dean makes the
request to the ministry to renew that funding — it was $100,000 in the past —
is that something that the ministry is open to?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
Thanks for the question. I would say that myself and my team have frequent
conversations with the dean. As Kylie indicated, we’re in frequent contact with
him and the needs of the college and certainly of the students.
I want to point out that
CLASSIC is providing a valuable service. That service exists and the students
are still free to participate in that if they choose, if the students want to
volunteer there. It being an urban program, it’s there and it’s available to
the students who are currently attending the college in Saskatoon.
This program and the needs
that Kylie has outlined, together with consultation with the dean of the
college, has really addressed what was identified as a rather critical need:
putting placements in more rural locations and dealing with those pressures. It’s
a lot easier for students to continue to participate in an urban program like
CLASSIC while attending, whereas that’s not an opportunity that’s available to
them in a rural setting while they’re attending the college and attending
class.
So I would say that we will
certainly continue to have those conversations with the outgoing dean and with
the incoming dean, but we’re cognizant of making sure that we’re providing the
most diverse opportunities for the students to make sure that they can serve
both urban and rural settings across Saskatchewan.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. Another question
I’ve asked in the past and am going to ask again this year.
We’ve
talked about the challenges around domestic violence in Saskatchewan and some
of the work that the ministry is doing with respect to that. One thing we’ve
requested and have not been successful in that request at this point in time,
is to have the government declare intimate partner violence an epidemic in
Saskatchewan. Is the ministry now prepared to do that this year?
[18:15]
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
Thanks for the question. I would say that what would demonstrate the
significance of this very serious issue for our government is the fact that we
invest over $72 million towards interpersonal violence and domestic
violence programming every year in our budget. This year in particular we’ve
got over $33 million just from the Ministry of Justice alone.
Gina Alexander is going to
provide some of the breakdown and specifics on what those investments are
really targeting, but the level of investment that we’re putting towards this
really is a strong indication of how seriously we take this issue. Gina.
Gina Alexander:
— Thank you. Out of the 70 million, 33.5 million investment annually
comes from both the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General at
31.9 million and the Ministry of Community Safety at 1.6 million. And
of course part of that contribution is approximately 5.5 million of the
federal funding for the national action plan for this year.
The combined provincial and
federal funding allocation provides a wide variety of support programs and
services for survivors of abuse, programming for those who use violence, as
well as investments in programming and tools designed to address interpersonal
violence before it starts. So we are focused not only on assisting people in
emergency situations but also assisting people in earlier intervention and also
assisting and gearing the programming to prevention as well.
Funded community-based
programs include early intervention and outreach for families at risk of
violence, of course emergency transition shelters, second-stage housing and
transportation services across the province, sexual violence services, support
for agencies that provide provincial coordination services, as well as supports
for families of missing persons, and supports for children and youth who have
witnessed and experienced violence, and supports for victims of crime including
policed-based victim services.
So all of those services
contribute to or are part of the 31.9 million that the Ministry of Justice
invests in annually.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. Of the
33 million, how much of that is new provincial money this fiscal year?
Brad
Gurash: —
Hello. Brad Gurash,
assistant deputy minister, corporate services. For the funding for new funding
there comes primarily through the CBO lifts this year. The majority of the
funding is base funding that we always maintain within our budget and make sure
that we allocate towards these initiatives and had, given their importance.
And
then as Gina mentioned, the federal funding portion — 5.5 million roughly —
comes from in
our budget this year from the national action plan to end gender-based
violence. And there’s also federal funding through the Victims’ Fund, which is
about 1.2 million. And our CBO lift in total for the ministry was
$440,000, of which 412,000 is directly related to these initiatives.
Nicole Sarauer: — Okay. So my initial question was, how much of the
33 million invested is new provincial dollars this year? Could you provide
that number?
Brad
Gurash: —
And that would
be the $440,000.
Nicole Sarauer: — $440,000.
Brad
Gurash: —
For the CBO lift.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Increase of provincial money?
Brad
Gurash: —
Yes.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Okay, and that’s it?
Brad
Gurash: —
Yes.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you.
You
mentioned, Minister, that there is $500,000 being provided to the Human Rights
Commission in new operating funding. Could you provide some more details as to
what that is for?
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
I’m cognizant of the time. Minister Schmalz is the Minister Responsible for the Human Rights
Commission, but Kimberly Kratzig can start on the answer, and Minister Schmalz
will take this chair to assist in any way.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Sure. The ’26‑27 budget provides the Saskatchewan Human Rights
Commission with 500,000 in new operating funding. There also is
$1.5 million in one-time capital funding to relocate to a new location to
improve access to services for the public.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Can you provide some detail as to what the operating funding will be for?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Sure. Thank you. Primarily the $500,000 will just help address growing
caseloads, ensuring timely resolution of issues, ensuring that they’re able to
meet their mandate in an effective way.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Will this result in new additional FTEs?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Thank you for the question. As you know, the Saskatchewan Human Rights
Commission is a third-party, independent operation. So I’m not really in a
position to comment on their human resource hirings and what they they’ll be
doing specifically in that regard.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Has the ministry put any accountability frameworks into the dollars that are
being provided, its significant increase in money, in terms of timelines for
files or anything like that?
Hon.
Eric Schmalz: —
Thanks for the question. Yeah obviously, we as government, we expect that any
organization that’s receiving government funding would be exercising prudent
fiscal management, obviously, when it comes to utilizing those dollars whether
they’re arm’s length or not.
So for them, obviously being
an arm’s length organization, that is within their purview to decide timelines,
to decide the day-to-day operations. We as government do not step in or
interject in any way in that. What we want to do though is we can look at their
annual report in which they provide those timelines. Any reporting on how their
structure is operating on a day-to-day basis is done through that process.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Could you speak to this $1.5 million that’s being provided for the new
capital funding for their move?
[18:30]
Hon.
Eric Schmalz: —
Thanks for the question. Yeah, so the need was identified by the Human Rights
Commission themselves. They’ve stated for some time that there’s been some
issues with their current space, their space currently for about 15 people.
Their current staffing complement is over 30.
So we wanted to ensure that
we were able to support them in providing a more functional space and to ensure
that the confidentiality of the interview process is maintained and ensuring
that those individuals who are seeking help from the Human Rights Commission,
that they are able to receive that in a proper setting.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Any idea yet where they’re moving to?
Hon.
Eric Schmalz: —
An RFP has been issued, and they are currently searching for a space. That work
is ongoing, and hopefully they will find that space very soon.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
I’ve just been given the hook by the Chair, so I’ll pass it on to you.
Chair
B. McLeod: — So having reached our
agreed-upon time for consideration of these estimates, we will now adjourn
consideration of the estimates and supplementary estimates no. 2 for
Justice and Attorney General and the Firearms Secretariat.
So thank you for two
ministers for their involvement and engagement tonight, and all the officials
that were here. Wonderful and very credible information that was given; we
appreciate that so much.
And I’ll ask the minister if
he has any closing comments.
Hon.
Tim McLeod: —
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My sincere thanks to yourself and to the
committee, to Ms. Sarauer for her many thoughtful and detailed questions.
Had a team of fantastic staff
here to assist me, as I do every day, and I want to thank all of them. I know
many of them didn’t have an opportunity to come to the table, but the people of
Saskatchewan are so incredibly well served by the team in the Ministry of
Justice and Attorney General. And I want to thank each and every one of them
for what they do each and every day, even if they didn’t manage to make their
way to the table here this evening. But thanks to the committee and to
yourself, Mr. Chair, to the staff and to Hansard. I appreciated the
opportunity.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Any closing comments from
committee members then as well, please? Yes.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. I’d like to join with the minister in first thanking yourself, Mr.
Chair, as well as the rest of the committee. Thank you for those who kept me
hydrated. I greatly appreciate that. And the committee staff as well as
yourself, Minister, and Minister Schmalz as well for answering my many
questions and putting up with me always. And as well as the officials. I always
feel really terrible when I don’t get a question to you, and you weren’t able
to come and answer, especially those who have travelled today.
I just want to say, on behalf
of the official opposition, thank you so much for all the work you do every
single day. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here in estimates and ask
questions of you. And we of course appreciate all of the work that you do and
as well as all of the staff that you represent. So thank you so much for that.
As well also my thanks goes to Hansard and broadcast services for their
work this afternoon.
Chair B. McLeod:
— Thank you so much. And I echo those comments as well from both the minister
and MLA Sarauer. So the committee will now recess until 7 p.m. Don’t go far.
Thank you.
[The
committee recessed from 18:34 until 19:01.]
General
Revenue Fund
Community Safety
Vote 73
Subvote (CS01)
Chair
B. McLeod: —
Welcome back, everyone, and welcome to all our new guests as well. We will now
be considering the estimates and supplementary estimates no. 2 for
Community Safety. We’ll begin with vote 73, Community Safety, central
management and services, subvote (CS01).
Minister Weger is here with
officials, and just as is normal there, we ask that officials please introduce
yourselves when they speak for the first time and don’t touch the microphones.
The Hansard operator will turn them on for you when you speak. So I’m
going to ask, Minister, if you’d please introduce your officials and make your
opening comments. The floor is yours.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Well thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to the committee members. Good evening.
I’m pleased to introduce the Ministry of Community Safety’s budget for the 2026‑27
fiscal year and I look forward to answering your questions. This year’s budget
furthers our government’s commitment to protect Saskatchewan communities and
neighbourhoods through new and continued investments in programs and services.
Tonight I am joined by Denise
Macza, deputy minister of community safety, and Marlo Pritchard, president of
the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, or SPSA. In the room with me are
additional officials from both the ministry and the SPSA.
Joining us from the ministry
are: Wanda Lamberti, assistant deputy minister of strategy and central
services; Corey Zaharuk, assistant deputy minister of policing and community
safety services; Dr. Joshua Freistadt, assistant deputy minister of supervision
and rehabilitation services; and Scott Harron, assistant deputy minister of
custody services.
From the SPSA we also have
Laura Debassige, vice-president, corporate services; and Michelle Broda,
executive director, finance and corporate services; and many other officials
that have joined us. And I thank them for being here tonight. I will ask other
officials to introduce themselves if they need to answer any questions during
tonight’s discussion.
As the new Minister of
Community Safety and Minister Responsible for the SPSA, I have had the honour
of attending ride-alongs with several police services to learn more about the
policing needs of our communities. I have had the opportunity to meet with ministry
staff and community stakeholders who work tirelessly to support youth and adult
offenders, help reduce reoffending, and keep our roads and communities safe.
And I have had the privilege of meeting with SPSA officials to learn more about
the important work they do to prepare and protect our citizens, property, and
natural resources from wildfires, floods, and other emergency situations.
This year’s budget continues
to fund our government’s investments in law enforcement and public safety
enhancements. This year we are providing $740 million to support policing
and community safety services throughout the Ministry of Community Safety. We
are also investing $140 million to support the work of the Saskatchewan
Public Safety Agency. For the SPSA, this amounts to more than a
$19.8 million increase over our 2025‑26 budget.
Saskatchewan’s 2026‑27
budget is designed to enhance and support community safety; law enforcement;
custody, supervision, and rehabilitation services; and emergency services
across the province. $310 million is being allocated to support RCMP
operations across Saskatchewan, including $26 million for First Nations
policing. This reflects roughly a $50 million increase over last year’s
support, including $47.7 million for the RCMP and $1.9 million for
First Nations policing. This increase is designed to address collective
bargaining requirements; rising cost pressures related to operations and
maintenance vehicles, utilities, equipment, and infrastructure; and specialized
operational support enhancements. This investment will help enhance community
safety for rural and urban citizens that are served by the RCMP.
To further enhance community
safety, an additional $583,000 is being distributed between six municipalities
through the municipal police grant program, for a total investment of nearly
$23.6 million in 2026‑27. Municipalities will use this funding to
support their local municipal services and enhance front-line policing efforts
in their communities. Our government is continuing its commitment to support
the hiring of roughly 100 new municipal police officers in Saskatchewan through
the safer communities and neighbourhoods enforcement initiative.
In fall 2024, our government
announced a two-year funding agreement to distribute $11.9 million over
two years to municipal police services to increase the number of front-line
officers serving in our communities. I’m pleased to announce that $6 million
is being delivered through the program this year to municipal police services
in Regina, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, Estevan, and Weyburn.
Approximately 71 of the 100 positions have been filled, and this funding will
help ensure the remaining positions are filled this year.
In addition to this
investment, over the past several weeks our government has promoted
Saskatchewan law enforcement careers through a national advertising campaign.
We believe that by supporting recruitment initiatives at the local level and
sharing Saskatchewan’s story across the country, this will help fill staffing
vacancies in all areas of law enforcement, whether it be through policing,
corrections, the Saskatchewan Marshals Service, or the provincial protective
services.
Saskatchewan is a great place
to live and raise a family, and we are happy to share that story with all
Canadians. The ad campaign is performing exceptionally well nationwide, driving
nearly 55,000 visits to the “Careers in Law Enforcement” pages on Saskatchewan.ca
since February. The video ads have also been viewed nearly 1 million times
on key platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. These figures
represent mid-campaign results, so we can expect even higher numbers in the
final performance report.
To further support community
policing in small towns and rural communities across the province, our
government is establishing the small town and rural policing grant program,
also known as STAR. This year, small town and rural police services in Dalmeny,
Luseland, Corman Park, Vanscoy, and Wilton are each receiving $10,000 per
officer to support policing efforts in their communities. As a result, a total
of $190,000 worth of grants are being provided through STAR in our 2026‑27
budget.
Each of these police services
supports the RCMP in delivering proactive, community-based policing in these
small towns and their surrounding rural municipalities. These services have
traditionally been paid entirely by the local community and area residents. Our
government is pleased to provide this funding to help ensure rural
Saskatchewan’s policing needs are met in an affordable manner for communities.
This year our budget also includes funding to expand the First
Nations community safety officer program, or FNCSO. The FNCSO program offers an
affordable, community-driven solution that supports the RCMP in policing
northern and First Nations communities in Saskatchewan. FNCSOs respond to
low-risk and bylaw infractions, allowing the RCMP to focus their efforts on addressing
more serious criminal activities happening in the area. We are proud to invest
$1.4 million to support the expansion of this initiative to bring more
FNCSOs to communities across Saskatchewan.
Our ministry is also
committed to supporting the Ministry of Health and the Saskatchewan Health
Authority to strengthen hospital security and law enforcement capacity in
collaboration with municipal police services. This year we are investing
$1.9 million to establish hospital public safety teams in Regina,
Saskatoon, and Prince Albert. These teams are the result of partnerships with
our municipal police services, and they will be integrated into their existing
special constable enforcement support initiatives.
$2.7 million is also
being allocated to help establish complex needs facilities, or CNF, within the
cities of North Battleford and Prince Albert. These facilities are operated in
partnership with the Ministry of Health. They’re designed to ensure individuals
experiencing an addiction or mental health crisis receive coordinated
wraparound supports. Each CNF is staffed by dedicated health care professionals
and security staff to ensure safe, timely care is provided. Individuals in the
facility may be monitored for up to 24 hours prior to being connected to
appropriate services and long-term supports that promote treatment and
recovery.
Moving on to protecting our
province’s roadways, the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol provides invaluable
services to the province, conducting commercial and motor vehicle inspections
along our highways and at permanent weigh scale locations. These inspections
help ensure Saskatchewan roads are safe for residents and visitors. This year
$713,000 is being invested to allow Highway Patrol to conduct more inspections,
remove more illicit substances, improve commercial vehicle compliance, and
support front-line policing efforts across the province.
To date, 26 out of 70
marshals have been hired to serve with the Saskatchewan Marshals Service. The
Marshals Service has been operating since spring 2025, and already they’re
making a difference in the province. The marshals are designed to target key policing
priorities such as gangs, illegal weapons, and drugs, as well as the
apprehension of prolific and high-risk offenders and wanted individuals who
pose a risk to public safety.
In the 2026‑27 budget,
the Saskatchewan Marshals Service is receiving $17 million, which is an
increase of $4.8 million over last year’s allocation. This funding will be
used to hire new marshals and expand the service’s ability to support policing
partners and law enforcement agencies across our province.
For custody and community
corrections services, our budget continues to support the safe operation of
custody facilities and the successful rehabilitation and reintegration of
individuals back into their communities. To support this work, $2.2 million
is being invested to increase on-site professional staffing in our large
correctional facilities. Through this investment, health care professionals
will now be available overnight within our correctional facilities. This will
allow staff to more effectively manage offender health care requirements and
reduce offender transports to local hospitals for treatments during the night
shift, relieving pressures on our hospitals.
$478,000 is also being
invested to establish a new inmate disciplinary process. To ensure fair and
impartial hearings for offenders in custody, justices of the peace and
disciplinary hearing officers will be hired to lead disciplinary hearings
involving offenders accused of major offences within our correctional
facilities. This process will enhance inmate accountability, more effectively
manage inmate behaviour, and create safer environments for staff and offenders
within our facilities.
A total of $6.5 million
is also being invested to expand the Pine Grove Correctional Centre’s admitting
unit in Prince Albert. This expansion includes the installation of technologies
designed to reduce the smuggling of contraband into the facility, upgrades to
security, and accessibility needs to enhance security and accommodate the
facility’s growing inmate population.
Within community corrections,
demand for GPS [global positioning system] electronic monitoring continues to
grow. GPS electronic monitoring is one of the most intensive supervision tools
a court can order to manage offenders in the community, either on bail or
through community sentence orders. With GPS technology, probation officers can
closely monitor offenders’ movements and designate exclusion zones, such as
schools or victims’ residences, where the court orders that offenders cannot
go. These measures ensure offenders are following the conditions of their
release, and if an infraction occurs, police can be notified immediately.
[19:15]
To help meet court demand and
further reduce capacity pressures, our government is investing an additional
$2 million to expand the GPS electronic monitoring program this year. This
allows community corrections to purchase another additional 100 GPS units for
monitoring Saskatchewan offenders in our communities.
In addition to enhancing
offender health and supervision, our government is continuing to make
investments that ensure offenders can reform and reintegrate into their
communities. With an investment of $312,000 from an agreement with the federal
government, this budget will establish a new program aimed to help women and
children at risk of gang involvement break gang ties.
On to the SPSA. Of the
$140 million allocated for the SPSA in the 2026‑27 budget,
$21.5 million represents increased spending on capital expenditures. This
capital investment is part of our four-year plan to purchase four repurposed
land-based air tanker aircraft consisting of two Dash 8‑Q400AT and two
Dash 8‑Q400MRE models. The first air tanker was delivered in 2025 and the
second air tanker is expected to be delivered in the second quarter of 2026.
This year we are also funding
three new initiatives to enhance SPSA’s ability to respond to emergency
situations and replace or enhance infrastructure that was lost in recent
wildfire seasons. $4.73 million is being allocated over two years starting
in 2026‑27 to support these initiatives. From this, $4.58 million
will be provided to replace infrastructure that was damaged during the 2025 and
previous wildfire seasons.
Over and above the
$4.78 million, through the large response infrastructure project, $500,000
is being provided this year to establish permanent incident camp infrastructure
at six locations: Lower Fishing Lake, Buffalo Narrows, La Loche, La Ronge, Big
River, and Pelican Narrows. This funding is the first of a three-year funding
agreement to construct permanent operational bases for large emergency response
management teams. These bases will help provide more rapid responses to
emergencies across the province, providing shelter and supplies for emergency
personnel.
We are also investing in the
evacuation application project to replace the SPSA’s existing web-based
evacuation application. This new modern system will help streamline the
coordination of evacuations and improve the sharing of communications during
emergency situations.
Our 2026‑27 budget
provides an additional $500,000 in new funding for the first year of the
evacuation application project. This project will take place over two years at
a total cost of $1 million.
As you can see, these
targeted investments will help ensure our police partners, correctional staff,
and emergency services personnel are well equipped to meet the demands and
challenges of today and tomorrow. This budget will help protect Saskatchewan by
ensuring the safety and security of communities and citizens across the
province.
I’m now pleased to address
your questions about the 2026‑27 business plan and budget for the
Ministry of Community Safety.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you, Minister. I
will now open the floor to questions. I recognize MLA Sarauer.
Nicole
Sarauer: — Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you,
Minister, for your opening comments. I’m going to start on the corrections side
of things with a request for point-in-time counts for all facilities. Yeah, you
know the drill.
Scott Harron:
— Scott Harron, assistant deputy minister, custody services. All right. Would
you like the 2026 data as well as the utilization percentage, I assume? And
then last year you asked for the per cent change in population by facility as
well as the per cent remand. I’ve got those this year, if you’d like.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Okay, that would be perfect. Thank you so much.
Scott Harron:
— Okay, perfect. We’ll start at the Regina Correctional Centre. There are
currently, as of today, 668 inmates. That is down 1 per cent from last year’s
total of 675. That is an 84.3 per cent utilization rate. We have a couple of
units that are currently undergoing some capital repairs, so they’re shut down
which is why their utilization is a bit lower. And there’s 60.2 per cent
remand.
The Saskatoon Correctional
Centre currently has 740 inmates. That is 25.6 per cent higher than it was last
year. That’s because we brought the new SCC [Saskatoon Correctional Centre]
expansion online which added 312 beds to the system. That came online in, I
think, November we got it fully up and running, and it’s been working very
well. The staff have been quite pleased with it, and everything I hear from it
coming out is it’s working very, very well. It’s a 91.7 per cent utilization
rate. And it’s 57.8 per cent remand.
Prince Albert Correctional
Centre, 664 to date. That’s 12.7 per cent higher than it was last year or 133.9
per cent utilization. It’s 68.4 per cent remand.
Pine Grove Correctional
Centre, our women’s facility: 266 inmates. That’s up 18.8 per cent over last
year at 160.2 per cent utilization or 55.3 per cent remand. Interestingly, that
remand percentage is actually down 10 per cent, quite significantly, yeah.
White Birch, which is our
smaller women’s facility in Regina based out of Paul Dojack, has 37 inmates.
It’s up 8.8 per cent or 108.8 per cent utilization. It’s 89.2 per cent remand.
It’s primarily intended for remands as a short-term stay before they go to Pine
Grove.
Saskatchewan Hospital North
Battleford is at 67 inmates. That’s up about 1 per cent. It’s just one person
different compared to last year; 69.8 per cent utilization and 47.8 per cent
remand.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. How much of that is Pine Grove and how much of that is your
traditional Sask Hospital?
Scott Harron:
— I think I’ve got those numbers somewhere. All right, I can give you the data
on that from February 11th. It’ll be very similar. The male psychiatric unit
EPVA [East Prairie View A] is 15. The equivalent unit B for the women is 15 as
well. And then the Pine Grove overflow units C and D are 23 and 24.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Sorry to interrupt.
Scott Harron:
— That’s okay. Whitespruce provincial training facility has 28 inmates. It’s
about 10 per cent down from last year, but within the normal variation we’d see
it at a complex like that; 71.8 per cent utilization. They’re all sentenced
individuals.
And Besnard Lake, the
equivalent in the North, has 14. Again that’s 22 per cent down from last year,
but again within normal variations because of the smaller numbers; 56 per cent
utilization and everybody sentenced.
And then the impaired driver
treatment program is 24 individuals, 20 per cent higher than last year — 80 per
cent utilization and 24 per cent remand.
So if you want the total
adult, I assume: 2,508 individuals — about 11.7 per cent over where we were
last year — 100.9 per cent utilization as the system as a whole; and 60 per
cent remand which is actually down 1 per cent compared to last year. As a comparator
point, if you look at the 2023 and 2024 reference year — what they have online
through Stats Canada — British Columbia is at 76 per cent; Alberta’s 85 per
cent; Manitoba, 75; and Ontario is 86 per cent.
We are one or possibly the
best in the country when it comes to our remand percentage as a measure of
total population.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. Could you provide the numbers for the youth facilities as well?
Scott Harron:
— All right. Paul Dojack Youth Centre is 46 — that’s down 9.6 per cent from
last year — 57.5 per cent utilization and . . . Oh, I didn’t do those
calculations for remand, but it was 17 remanded individuals out of 46. Kilburn
Hall has 25 youth — down 16.7 per cent over last year — 55.6 per cent
utilization, and 14 of those youth are on remand. And Prince Albert youth
centre has 16 individuals — 14.3 per cent increase from last year — 61.5 per
cent utilization, and seven of those are on remand. For a total of 87 youth in
custody — that’s down 8.4 per cent over last year — 57.6 per cent utilization
and 38 of those are remand.
Nicole Sarauer: — Do you have available to you
the total number of FTEs working within the correctional facilities?
[19:30]
Scott Harron: — Sorry, we had to
double-check the numbers. So custody services this year has 2,264.8 FTEs in our
budget. That’s up from last year. There are 16.5 FTEs that are dedicated
towards the overnight health services side of the world.
Four FTEs that are dedicated
towards inmate discipline. This is our hearing officers that’ll be conducting
these hearings within the facility, so one for each of the four big facilities.
Thirteen for the final year
of the SCC expansion. Those are a lot of, you know, admin positions and that
sort of thing that didn’t need to be hired on day one; they could be hired this
year.
And then 250 for the overtime
reduction float pool. So what we’ve done . . . This isn’t new bodies
on the floor. This is bringing people in on float pools on straight time to
cover off things like sick leave, vacation leave, training, that sort of thing,
so results in some pretty good overtime savings without adding bodies to the
floor.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. You mentioned a
few times now the new overnight health services and the FTEs that will be a
part of that. Can you speak to how this is going to operate throughout the
facilities, how many folks in each facility, and any other details you can provide
us would be appreciated.
Josh Freistadt: — Good evening. Josh Freistadt, ADM [assistant
deputy minister],
supervision and rehabilitation services.
So
the 2.2 million investment is 16.5 FTEs for overnight health care. That
breaks down to, in each of the adult major facilities, the plan with that money
is to increase the charge nurses, to have a presence in the afternoon where
there currently is no supervision for nurses, and then also cover the evening
shift where there was no nursing clinic running. So that’ll be one extra person
for the overnight shift.
What
that’ll allow us to do is it’ll allow us to ensure that we don’t leave
correctional staff who may not have the necessary clinical expertise making
decisions about whether to escort someone or not, and may in fact then bring
down our unnecessary escorts to a hospital if we have somebody who can maybe
provide that care in the facility.
Nicole Sarauer: — And just to be clear, that expansion’s occurring in
every adult facility?
Josh
Freistadt: —
The large four, so Pine Grove, P.A. [Prince Albert] Correctional, Regina, and
Saskatoon. The other facilities, which already have nursing clinics — like the
youth ones — will have access to a dedicated charge nurse in the overnight
period on an on-call basis. So they’ll benefit by being able to pick up the
phone and go, here’s the situation we have; can you look this person up in the
system and advise?
Of course if there’s an
emergency where the most expedient thing to do is to phone EMS [emergency
medical services], that will still be the protocol, those facilities.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. Could you provide the committee an update on the plan for the
recently or previously announced additional correctional centre in Regina?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So with the new women’s facility in Regina, that project remains in its early
stages. And it’s proceeding through the necessary steps of development, and pre-design
work is continuing this year through existing budgets.
Nicole Sarauer: — Any idea when the pre-design
work will be completed?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
The intention is to have the pre-design work done before the end of the fiscal
year.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. And just to clarify, I believe you just said this, but there has
been no dollars allocated this fiscal that’s for this project?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
We’re using funds available in the base capital budget to continue the work
this year.
Nicole Sarauer: — How much money?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So we’re relying on base capital budget funding, which is available for
approximately $3.52 million. Of course we have other plans for some of
that money. So we would expect it’s a small fraction of that, probably close to
$100,000 this year, as far as what we need to complete the pre-planning phase.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. Do you have the total amount spent — this is something I’ve asked
for before — on overtime for staff in our correctional facilities in the last
fiscal which you could provide to the committee?
[19:45]
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So the amount spent on overtime in 2025‑26 was $35,861,524, which is a
4.61 per cent decrease from the $37,593,985 in 2024. And those are April to
February numbers.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. And you
anticipated my follow-up question, which was whether that was an increase or a
decrease from the year prior, so appreciate that. Could you provide some
further detail about the Pine Grove admittance expansion that has been
discussed?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So the Ministry of Community Safety has $6.5 million allocated in the ’26‑27
budget to complete the design and begin construction of the expansion of the
Pine Grove Correctional Centre admitting unit. We’re pretty much at the end of
the design phase as we speak, and there will be an RFP coming forward in the
next few months. And then we would expect to have shovels in the ground very
shortly thereafter.
And just for the committee’s
benefit, the existing admitting unit at Pine Grove Correctional Centre is
undersized. And we’ve done a tour together and recognized that. So there’s
capacity and space pressures being experienced at that centre which will
continue on unless we do this expansion. So we are moving forward as quick as
possible.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. I know folks are
looking forward to the opening of that. Are you able to provide for the
committee the total amount of WCB [Workers’ Compensation Board] claims for
correctional staff in the last fiscal year?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So we had to do some math. I think your question was how many staff in the
custody facilities are on Workers’ Compensation or had Workers’ Compensation
claims.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Yeah, that’s right.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So doing the math based on hours off on Workers’ Compensation, we figured out
about 91 per cent of the Workers’ Compensation hours relate to custody. And so
that would have very close to 141 individuals on Workers’ Compensation in 2025‑26.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. And it’s probably . . . You can tell me if it’s too much
detail at this time to ask if that can be broken down by facility.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
I can tell you the hours, the Workers’ Compensation hours by facility.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Sure.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Okay, we’ll start with Besnard Lake community correctional camp, 1,678; Paul
Dojack Youth Centre, 2,073; Pine Grove Correctional Centre, 5,928; Prince
Albert Correctional Centre, 8,052; Regina Correctional Centre, 6,816; Saskatoon
Correctional Centre, 8,072; Saskatchewan Hospital, North Battleford, 1,953; and
Whitespruce training centre, 1,300. I think I covered everything off there.
Just one note on that.
Speaking to my assistant deputy minister, in corrections we’re looking at
approximately 1 per cent rate. And if you were to compare across the province,
he has colleagues that are up around 10 per cent in many of the provinces. So very
happy with those numbers.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Just to confirm, those are numbers from the last . . . is that ’25‑26,
the last fiscal?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
That’s correct, 2025‑26.
Nicole Sarauer: — How many offenders died in
custody last fiscal?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Okay. So there were two deaths in custody in 2025‑26 fiscal year. Of
course no death is ever acceptable, but it is important to note that this is
the fewest number of deaths in custody since 2016‑2017, despite having a
larger custody population.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. Do you have the location of those deaths, and the cause of death?
[20:00]
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So both deaths occurred at the Regina Correctional Centre. And one has been
determined to be natural causes as per the coroner. And the second death is
still under investigation.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. The other program I ask about often is the drug and alcohol
substance treatment units in the various facilities. Could you provide me some
information as to — by each one, because there’s a few now — how many offenders
completed the program in the last fiscal? And then if you have the wait-lists
as well, the numbers for those would be appreciated. Thank you.
Josh Freistadt:
— So for the dedicated substance abuse treatment units, the total program
completions for last year were 352 participants. That is 94 from Regina
Correctional Centre, 116 from Pine Grove Correctional Centre, 65 from Prince
Albert Correctional Centre, and 77 from Saskatoon Correctional Centre.
The total wait-list, and this
is as of January 1. So keep in mind, depending on where a cohort is at in their
programming really sort of determines where the wait-lists are at. But the
total wait-lists across those centres as of January 1st was 116 inmates. That
was 66 at Regina Correctional, zero at Pine Grove Correctional, 30 at Prince
Albert Correctional Centre, and 20 at Saskatoon Correctional Centre.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. There were no plans this fiscal to expand the program. Could you,
Minister, explain why it wasn’t considered this time around?
Josh Freistadt:
— So the funds for this program are flow-through funds from the federal
government through the province’s gang-violence reduction strategy. And that
agreement, all of the funding is set contractually until that agreement expires
with the federal government at the end of the ’27‑28 fiscal year.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. We had submitted a written question about programming available on
remand in various facilities, and the ministry responded that programming such
as AA [Alcoholics Anonymous], NA [Narcotics Anonymous], and individual
addiction services can be accessed when available. Can you expand on what you
meant by “when available.”
Josh
Freistadt: —
Thanks for the question. The further follow-up and context to our written
response there was, what we meant by “as available” is that both AA and NA are
delivered by community partners. So we rely on them to be able to come into the
facilities, and whenever they’re able to do that we make the arrangements. So
it’s not a government-delivered program. It’s a community-delivered program,
government arranged.
Nicole
Sarauer: — Thank you. My colleague Mr. Gordon’s
going to ask some questions on the marshals.
Chair B. McLeod: — I recognize MLA Gordon.
Hugh
Gordon: — Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you,
Minister. Thank you to his entire team, everyone that’s here this evening. Much
appreciated. I know some of you travelled some ways here tonight.
I see in the estimates there’s an extra
$4.8 million assigned to the Saskatchewan Marshals budget for this year.
Just wondering what the plans are of the use of the extra dollars in the budget
or where it’s going to, if you could enlighten us.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So in 2026‑27 there’s $4.8 million allocated. $1.8 million of
that is salary for the 23 marshals anticipated to be hired. And the remaining
$3 million would be equipment, operations, the member’s kit that they
receive, training. All of that is included in that extra 3 million for a
total of 4.8 million.
Hugh
Gordon: —
So that’s an anticipatory amount for 23 more officers, which will kind of bring
me to my next question. I believe you said in your opening comments that there
were 27 out of 70 positions filled. Is that correct?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So the Saskatchewan Marshals Service currently has 26 members, and then two
more coming on in May to bring us up to 28.
Hugh
Gordon: —
To 28?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Twenty-eight at May 1.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Sorry. I must have misheard. Okay, so how many of the 26 currently are
front-line officers? How many are management or supervisory roles?
[20:15]
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Okay, so as of May 1st we’ll have . . . would be 23 front-line
officers. Six of those would be inspectors and 17 would be marshals, which is
your equivalent to a constable.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you very much. And
then how many . . . I don’t know if it’s a current number, but how
many have registered with the Saskatchewan Police College or are currently in
training?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So there are currently two marshals attending the Saskatchewan Police College,
and we anticipate that they’ll be graduating on June 11th. And I look forward
to attending my fourth graduation to watch them graduate that day.
Hugh Gordon: — Good show. I was wondering
if you could tell the committee today just how many of your current complement
of officers have come from other Saskatchewan law enforcement agencies.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So other than the two marshals that are currently in police college, all of the
existing marshals have been lateral hires. We don’t have the exact locations
today on where they came from, but I’m not sure that that’s really relevant to
the estimates.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Well it’s a cost to other police agencies like the RCMP that have lost people,
Prince Albert city police that have lost people. It puts an onus on them now to
find money in the budget, which comes from your department, to recruit, retain,
you know, these individuals. So that’s why I believe that question is relevant.
That
said, I’d like to ask you a question about the MOUs [memorandum of
understanding] that you have signed with other municipalities. How many have
you currently signed in the province of Saskatchewan?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Okay, so just for clarification, with the Marshals Service we refer to
memorandums of agreement rather than memorandums of understanding. Currently
there’s four signed MOAs [memorandum of agreement] with Estevan Police Service,
Moose Jaw Police Service, Prince Albert Police Service, and Weyburn Police
Service. We have three MOAs in development with Regina Police Service,
Saskatoon Police Service, and the RCMP. And we also have at this time . . .
while we’re working on the MOA with the RCMP, we have a working-level agreement
in place with the RCMP.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Sorry, and correct me if I’m wrong, did you not also
sign one just recently with James Smith Cree? Did I understand that correctly?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
I understood your question just to be who we had memorandum of understandings
with as far as other police services. Yeah.
Hugh Gordon: — Oh. How many then, Mr.
Minister, include First Nations?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So we do have one memorandum of understanding, which is the term we use when
it’s with a First Nation, and that’s with the Red Pheasant Cree Nation. And
that’s due to the fact that our regional detachment for the Saskatchewan
Marshals Service is on their land on an urban reserve in North Battleford.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Fair enough. That brings me to the North Battleford detachment. It was
announced last year that there would be a presence in that community. I’m just
wondering if you could tell the committee where that is at right now.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So the office in North Battleford is referred to as the North Battleford
regional headquarters. It’s currently operational and it’s staffed with three
marshals and one inspector.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. And so they’re currently taking calls for service there?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So at the North Battleford location, the Saskatchewan Marshals Service is
supporting the RCMP through the working-level agreement. And so I think it’s
important to point out they don’t respond to 911 calls. They respond to calls
from the RCMP for assistance, and they’re currently supporting the RCMP in that
role when the calls for assistance come in.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. Well I’d like to ask some questions about the kind of service that
the marshals is providing. So I mentioned a number of memorandums of agreement
you have with municipalities, other police agencies, First Nations. What kind
of services are being offered by the marshals to those entities?
[20:30]
Rob
Cameron: —
Rob Cameron, chief marshal for the Marshals Service. And if I could just get
you just to repeat your question for me just one more time, make sure I’m on
the right track for what you want to hear.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Fair enough. Just you’ve got a number of these memorandums of agreement with
municipalities or First Nations or other policing agencies in the province of
Saskatchewan. I just wanted to get a better appreciation what kind of services
you have agreed to provide with those MOAs.
Rob
Cameron: —
Yeah, and that’s a great question. We have a wide variety of things that we do
as the Marshals Service and what kind of services we provide. So we have an
overall mandate of obviously high-risk, high-impact crime — detection,
deterring, and disrupting crime within the province. But we have some very
specific mandates as well.
One area that
we look at is the prolific offender, the apprehension of people that are wanted
on different warrants or running from the justice system. So that’s actually a
large part of what we do right now, but we’ve tackled all kinds of
different crime types and different assistance files. In fact, just from the
point of view of some ideas on statistically what we’ve done, so speaking
specifically to assistance files for other agencies, we’ve looked at about 65,
or we have 65 files that we’ve worked with another police agency on
specifically.
We’re also involved in . . .
For example, when we started and we went operational, one of the first files we
had was a homicide, assisting with a homicide. Not to say we were investigating
the homicide, because we didn’t, but we provided assistance to that police
service that had that homicide. Then the very next one was an officer-involved
shooting. And so generally speaking we provide that assistance. And many times
over now, since we’ve been going, we provide assistance to police agencies with
either scene containment or potentially gathering evidence, securing evidence.
And that’s been a pretty common occurrence for us since we started.
From the point of view of the
other mandates that we have, we do have a mandate with regards to agricultural
crime as well, whether that be theft of cattle or other agricultural crime,
maybe mischief to farm lands, things like that, although that hasn’t been a big
factor in what we’ve done. We’ve assisted with Animal Protection Services, for
example. In the early days that was to provide a keep-the-peace sort of idea,
where there was some concern with officer safety for the animal protection
officers. And we provided resources to that to ensure that they were able to
complete their duties and functions and remain safe.
As an organization we’ve done
to this point roughly 90 — well 92 — warrant apprehensions. From a Criminal
Code warrant point of view, 130 executed warrants there. One of the areas
that’s kind of interesting for us is also we’ve been assisting with our colleagues
in corrections with the electronic monitoring and the bail monitoring programs.
From that point we’ve done 310 checks, compliance checks, with that.
So of course the idea behind
those checks is that these are folks that are on various release conditions, as
you would be familiar with that. And the release conditions, making sure that
they abide by those conditions, whether it’s curfews or abstaining, or whatever
the case may be, and that they are of course not reoffending. And that can be
obviously a very large deterrent factor when you have dedicated marshals that
are going in and making sure that people are complying with particular
conditions.
From the point of view of . . .
One thing that we’re just embarking on now is another partnership with our
correctional colleagues and creating a CID-type unit, or criminal investigation
division or unit. What that’s designed to do is to investigate crimes. And at
this point in time, that’s going to be regulated to the Prince Albert area for
the major correctional facilities there.
What’ll happen there is we
will take on those investigations to the limit that we have the capacity to do.
For example, we wouldn’t undertake a homicide investigation. That would be
something that the RCMP or maybe the Prince Albert Police Service would have to
because we don’t have a forensic section or the kinds of tools that you would
need to do that. So that would be beyond our capacity. However assaults,
assault causing, aggravated assaults, things like that, drug files, certainly
things that we could do within our area.
One of the benefits of that,
and really why is that important, is because it takes and alleviates some of
the pressure off the POJ, police of jurisdiction, which is certainly one of our
major mandates and the reasons why we exist, is to enhance that public safety,
enhance that policing presence, and be able to relieve some of the pressure
from our POJ partners.
And certainly by being able
to go into a facility like that right now, for example, in the Prince Albert
Correctional Centre, the Prince Albert Police Service has to go and do those
files. We can take some of that pressure off, which then redirects some of
their resources back to front line and allows the P.A. Police Service to not
have to remove cruiser cars or members from the front line and can respond to
calls.
In fact that’s one of the
fringe benefits or one of the major benefits we’ve seen in recent time is with
our assistance files. And whether it’s assisting P.A. or assisting RCMP in
Craven, for example, what it does is really provides the ability for that police
of jurisdiction to refocus their resources back to core policing functions —
which is important, right? — so the 911 call.
And as the minister said, we
don’t necessarily take 911 calls, although we do function as a response from
the PRT [protection and response team] point of view, so the protection
response team that’s in the province. And that was created back in 2018 thereabouts.
And that program, which also involves members of PPS [provincial protective
services], so the Highway Patrol and the conservation officers. But when that
was designed, that model allowed those resources to respond when the RCMP, for
example, primarily didn’t have the ability to respond quickly to those areas or
was tied up with something else or whatever.
The Marshals Service is in
essence that idea expanded and makes it into an ability to leverage a force
multiplier, if you will, to be able to address any kind of gaps that they would
have there, but the difference being is the members of the Marshals Service are
fully trained, fully equipped police officers.
Hugh
Gordon: —
As a follow-up to that, Chief, just trying to get an appreciation of what your
policing footprint is in the province. You mentioned a couple of things, and I
don’t know if they’re contradictory or complementary. You have a mandate for
high-risk crime, for agricultural crime, but yet you’re mainly an assistance
service? And if I’m wrong, please correct me, but I’m just trying to get an
appreciation of what you do.
So
for example, I would ask you, in the course of all of your duties since you’ve
been operational, how many arrests have you made? How many charges have you
laid? How many matters have gone to court? And I’ll ask you that question
specifically, I guess, if you could provide some insight into that, give me an
idea of just what kind of activity you guys are undertaking that takes off the
strain from other police forces.
Rob Cameron:
— So thank you for your question. So from the point of view of arrests, as I
indicated before, you know, warrant apprehensions, that whole area has been
really our bread and butter lately here. And we’ve got, as I said before, 92
arrests there, 130 Criminal Code warrants executed. So there’s a fair amount of
people there. Now we’ve laid charges, although today I don’t have the
information in front of me today to say where they all were. They would be
related to some of those arrests, breaches, and things like that.
However, you know, one event
and maybe give you some context as to sometimes the way things just transpire
when you’re in police work, and I know you can appreciate that. But we had an
incident where we were assisting RCMP up in the Big River area, I believe, and
there was an armed and barricaded situation. And we’ve had a few of those now,
but what was interesting in this particular event was the individual — for
whatever reason, and I don’t understand totally the motivation for it — only
wanted to surrender to our marshal.
So our marshal actually went
there and the individual was called out, and as you know, pretty tense
situation. Called the individual out and he surrendered to our marshal. So that
was a very unique event where we provided a very interesting service to that
police service. Not one we anticipated, but at the end of the day, though, we
were able to bring that individual out safe. They surrendered and charges were
obviously laid.
In most of the cases, charges
are laid in those kinds of files by the POJ. We’re providing the force
multiplier, as I said before, so they can carry out those functions and have
the extra resources to manage that scene, particularly in areas that are isolated
or rural. Generally though, they lay the charges.
However in cases where we’ve
made arrests on warrants and whatnot, if there’s a breach located, what we try
to function is we clean what we catch. And so generally speaking, when we take
an individual into custody, if there’s new charges relating to that, we’ll lay
those charges. We’ll process that file from birth — I guess, from cradle to
grave if you will. So we’ll take it through the whole system.
[20:45]
Hugh
Gordon: —
Yeah, I’m still just trying to visualize what you’re describing in terms of the
services you provide. I remember I attended a presentation by — and forgive me,
I forgot his name — superintendent of your organization last year at an RCMP
Veterans Association banquet or lunch. And so there was a little, you know, I
won’t say confusion but difficulty trying to figure out exactly what your
mandate is.
I think the warrant thing
came up and whatnot. But there was also talk of, you know, doing this high-risk
crime stuff, really specialized things. So then to me as, you know, experienced
— now retired, thank goodness — law enforcement officer, having worked on very
complex cases, I know what all kind of work that goes into that stuff, the
kinds of specialization for things like writing warrants, getting production
orders, you know, knowing how to handle sources, knowing how to just . . .
you know, the whole case management system. All that stuff requires
specialization. It sounded to me like that’s something that the Saskatchewan Marshals
were going to do.
Yet when I asked — and I’ll
ask you — I was like, how many of these files are self-generated? How much of
this is going to be where you are the lead on items? Is that part of your
mandate, or is it strictly going to continue on to be just an assistance basis?
And if that is the case, I’m just curious how that assistance arises, if that
is also self-generated or something that, let’s say, you’re essentially waiting
for a call.
Rob
Cameron: —
Thanks again for your question. I guess there’s multiple areas in which we’re
involved. So first of all, we can self-generate files for investigation based
on whether it’s intelligence or different high priorities within the province
or focusing around that high-risk, high-impact crime — gangs, drugs, illegal
weapons, things like that. We certainly can do that autonomously and
self-generate that.
The
other part of that, of course, is every day we are looking for individuals that
are wanted and running from the justice system or need to be brought to the
justice system, whether it’s on warrants or first-instance warrants, things
like that. So that’s a daily occurrence for us as well.
And
then also — maybe the third part of that or the trifecta, if you will — but the
third part of that is that ability to respond for calls for assistance or
support and provide that to our POJ partners. And it doesn’t necessarily have
to be just a criminal event. We also have the opportunity and the ability to
support, for example, well, natural disasters, the fires, things like that. In
fact we provided that support.
But
it also can be what we saw when we assisted the RCMP with Craven. So obviously
events like that, where there is large crowds, there is, you know, particularly
some risk to that. There could be crime elements, but there is also the
elements, for example, of a tornado or a storm or something like that comes up.
So
adding those additional resources to be able to support the POJ is . . .
That’s the three primary, if I could group them like that, three areas of how
we utilize our mandate.
Hugh
Gordon: —
So if you could just recap that once again for me. So your first one was to do
high-risk stuff that is self-generated. Do I understand that correctly?
Rob Cameron:
— Yeah.
Hugh
Gordon: —
And then your other was to do warrants and apprehensions. And then the last
piece was again the assisting other agencies or entities for their requests for
service in other areas.
Rob Cameron:
— Right. And specifically that could be with a call for assistance to an
investigation, a criminal investigation, or it could be a natural disaster or
it could be some other . . . It really is dependent on the POJ and
what they really need assistance for, but a variety of different things there.
Hugh Gordon: — Fair enough. So I wanted to
go back to touch a little bit on your answer to the prior question about
charges and arrests and whatnot. And you mentioned the numbers and I’ve written
them down. So I just was curious how many of those charges were handed to
another police force to process versus how many you processed. And if you don’t
have that information here today, if you could agree to provide that to the
committee in a reasonable time frame, that would be great.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Okay. We will endeavour to obtain the number of informations laid by the
marshals and provide that information to the committee.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you very much. I also
want to touch back on your memorandum of agreement with the Red Pheasant First
Nation. I’m not sure if I did get the answer to the James Smith Cree Nation.
I’m just curious: what services, in your memorandum of agreement with Red
Pheasant or with perhaps James Smith, are you providing them?
[21:00]
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Okay, so I can provide some clarification on this for you. So with respect to
Red Pheasant Cree Nation, that’s where we have that one MOU. That’s the only
MOU that we have currently with any First Nation. And there’s a few aspects to
that: (1) it established that there be a regional detachment located on their
urban reserve, (2) that it would encourage individuals on that First Nation to
potentially get involved in policing, and (3) it established that there was an
invitation from Red Pheasant Cree Nation for the Saskatchewan Marshals Service
to attend onto their traditional lands.
Since then, the Saskatchewan
Marshals Service has been involved in additional BCRs, or band council
resolutions, and essentially the band council resolution is signed by the band.
It’s not signed by the Marshals Service. And there are currently four of those
band council resolutions that have been signed: one with One Arrow First
Nation, one with Montreal Lake Cree Nation, one with the English River First
Nation, and just recently this past Wednesday, I attended to Prince Albert —
planned on attending to James Smith Cree Nation, but the weather didn’t allow,
but I attended to Prince Albert — and met with Chief Kirby via video,
Vice-Chief Tootoosis, and some other council members, in which in my presence
they signed the band council resolution with James Smith Cree Nation.
Again those band council
resolutions are essentially an invitation to the marshals to attend on their
traditional land. And the idea and concept behind that is that it’s following
the Calls to Action relating to policing, in which it was recommended there
should be nation-to-nation agreements for policing.
And in addition to the four
that have been signed, the Saskatchewan Marshals Service have had the request
and interest from 17 further First Nations that have reached out and have
intention of signing band council resolutions as well, with the goal of the
Saskatchewan Marshals Service to engage with every First Nation in the province
around having a band council resolution signed.
It’s important to note that
the Marshals Service does have jurisdiction all across the province, but their
intention is to meet and engage with each First Nation and obtain a band
council resolution providing them that permission to attend on their traditional
lands.
And I’d also point out that
this is essentially a first of its kind across the province, being that the
Saskatchewan Marshals Service is the only newly established police service
across the country. Being the marshals are the only newly established police
service across the country, it’s the first opportunity to meet the Call to
Action regarding policing.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you. Just before
the next question, I’ve given a great deal of latitude in regard to the
questioning that has come forward. The very first question that you brought
forward worked its way back to the estimates. I need you to work your way back to
. . . What we are discussing tonight is the estimates in front of us.
I feel like we’re going into the weeds in a big, large way in regards to the
operation of the marshals and our focus needs to really get back to the
estimates and what’s in front of us. So I would just encourage you in that
regard.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that, and I think for clarity for the
purpose of the committee and for everyone here attending today, you know, the
relevance here quite frankly is the more service that the marshals provide, the
more MOUs or MOAs that they sign, the more BCRs that they engage in, the larger
the workload, the demand on the service, the file load grows. You know, your
footprint grows larger and ultimately I would imagine stress on your budget.
And so it was with that in mind that I was asking you those questions.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So for 2025‑26 the Saskatchewan Marshals Service would be a part of the
Ministry of Community Safety annual report.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair B. McLeod: — All right. I recognize MLA Sarauer.
Nicole Sarauer: — Mr. Chair, I have some questions
about wildfire strategy. First, as you had mentioned today, Minister — and I’ve
seen in other locations it has been mentioned — that
there was an internal review done after last year’s wildfire season and that
changes have already been implemented within the SPSA for this year’s wildfire
season in response to that internal review. Could you please explain to the
committee what changes have been implemented for this wildfire season?
[21:15]
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Thank you for the question. And I’ll start out with this answer, and I
anticipate some further questions regarding the wildfires.
But I’ll start out this
answer, just putting on record just the appreciation I have for every woman and
man that assisted with the efforts against the wildfires in the 2025 season,
whether it was individuals supplying food to the firefighters, to the municipalities
supplying firefighters, and then of course to the women and men of the
Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency which I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of
them. And it’s my honour to have met them and get to learn about what they do
for our province, the service they provide to our province to protect us in the
event of disaster.
And with respect to your
question, it’s important to note that every year after the wildfire season the
SPSA conducts its internal review of that wildfire season. And so again, that’s
specifically what the SPSA did this year as well.
And I think it comes from the
whole idea that if you aren’t learning from your experiences, that’s when
you’re failing. And so the SPSA is learning from their experience, the
different wildfires they see each year. And we just went through a year where we
saw unprecedented wildfires with what many would describe as abnormal fire
behaviour.
And so I’m happy to go
through a list. It’s probably fair to say it’s not an exhaustive list, but a
list of many improvements and additional steps the Saskatchewan Public Safety
Agency has taken already in anticipation of the upcoming wildfire season.
So it’s things as simple as
signing a contract for an additional helicopter to bring us up to eight
helicopters that will be on contract for this upcoming wildfire season;
formalizing agreements with our various municipal volunteer fire departments;
the addition of a third-party contractor who is currently working on the
maintenance required on one of our 215 amphibious water bombers; earlier
recruitment, bringing on new recruits one month earlier and beginning air and
ground training as of April 5th, earlier than previous seasons.
There’s additional mitigation
projects that the SPSA has been involved in with various communities throughout
the North. They reviewed their type 2 community firefighter contracts with
their First Nations. I was able to attend Nisbet depot just this past
Wednesday. And Howard Georgeson, long-time, experienced employee with the
Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, gave me a tour of their stockpile of
chainsaws, pumps, hose.
In Nisbet depot just north of
Prince Albert, they house 30 per cent of all of the SPSA’s supplies that
they’ll need for the firefighting in the upcoming season. They’re fully stocked
in P.A. and throughout the province. So they’re fully stocked as far as all the
supplies have been replenished, serviced, and ready to go. And we’re talking
pallets and pallets of firehose, pallets of chainsaws, and pumps galore. So
that step was taken to obtain those resources and have them all fully stocked
and ready for this upcoming wildfire season.
The Saskatchewan Public
Safety Agency has also worked with Social Services to ensure that there will be
no clawback this year for type 3 firefighters that become involved in wildfire
fighting efforts.
They also took the
opportunity to review their agreements through CIFFC [Canadian Interagency
Forest Fire Centre], which is within Canada, and they made international
compact agreements which have now expanded actually — on the compact agreements
— to include California and Nevada. So they have come on board in those compact
agreements and been added to that as well.
We’ve also made improvements
at the call centre and working to improve how efficient they are at taking
calls at the call centre. And there are also improvements to increase the
timeliness of supports in the event that there’s an evacuation.
So again a fairly long list.
Unfortunately not an exhaustive point-by-point list, but that should give
everyone on the committee an idea of the work that has been done in preparation
of the 2026 wildfire season.
Nicole Sarauer: —
What was the budgeted wildfire expenditure in last year’s budget? And how does
that compare to this year’s budget?
[21:30]
Hon.
Michael Weger: — For the ’26‑27 year the variable
incident response amount budgeted is $14.05 million, and the majority, the
vast majority of that is intended for wildfire response, comparing that to
Manitoba’s budgeted amount for wildfire suppression, which is 13.9 million.
And the 14.05 million is the same amount that was budgeted last year,
similar to Manitoba that also budgeted $13.9 million in the previous
fiscal year.
Nicole
Sarauer: — You said that that was money for
preventative work. Is that correct?
Hon.
Michael Weger: — That would be for response to
wildfires.
Nicole Sarauer: —
For response, okay. What work is being done on prevention, mitigation this
wildfire season?
Hon.
Michael Weger: — So to provide some context around the answer, I’ll
start by explaining that the Government of Saskatchewan
has been completing fuel mitigation work around communities at risk from
wildfire since the 1990s. Fuel mitigation means reducing wildfire behaviour
potential by altering the fuels in designated areas through a fuel mitigation plan.
In
2019 the SPSA signed a contribution agreement with Infrastructure Canada
through the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund, or DMAF, to complete fuel
mitigation work on 2464 hectares in 84 communities over the course of time from
2019 to 2028. The contribution agreement is for a total of $33,389,406.
[21:45]
Fuel
mitigation is often done adjacent to communities through various methods such
as mulching, harvesting, and thinning, with ground crews using chainsaws and
brush saws. In 2009 to 2011, the Government of Saskatchewan partnered with the
Prince Albert Grand Council to complete several fuel mitigation projects in
communities adjacent to and within the boreal forest through Western Economic
Diversification funding. As part of this funding, Indigenous residents local to
projects were trained and certified to use chainsaws and brush saws and then
were the crews that completed the work with the equipment staying with the
communities.
The SPSA partnered with northern
municipalities, the northern Saskatchewan administration district, and
SaskPower to complete the work for the 2019 contribution agreement with
Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada. As we enter the seventh year of
this nine-year project, over 1350 hectares have been treated at a cost of
$21,487,036. This does not include area treated by SaskPower Corporation.
Another 360 hectares were treated in
2025‑26 at a projected cost of $5,511,821. For 2026‑27, the DMAF
projects will total $3.221 million with the SPSA’s contribution being
$911,000.
Nicole Sarauer: — What’s the current maintenance
status of all the water bombers? You mentioned that one of the water bombers is
currently being maintained by a third party or undergoing maintenance, but can
you provide the current maintenance status of all of them?
Hon. Michael Weger: — I’ll just maybe summarize all of the
current fleet that the SPSA has.
Nicole Sarauer: — I just want to know what their
maintenance status is, please.
Hon. Michael Weger: — Sure. There are two CL‑215
turbine amphibious air tankers that are projected to be . . . They’re
undergoing maintenance right now, as I touched upon. An additional contractor
was brought in to assist with the work being done in a timely manner. And the
expectation is that they’ll be brought online in, I believe . . .
A Member: — In July.
Hon. Michael Weger: — Yeah, in July.
Nicole Sarauer: — Is that it?
Hon. Michael Weger: — That’s it.
Nicole Sarauer: — Okay. Can you remind us when the
SPSA will receive its next purchased water bomber?
Hon.
Michael Weger: — So the second Q400 is a Q400MRE. It’s a
multi-use as opposed to the first one, which just hauls water. It can be
converted. And that Q400 is planned to be delivered by the end of August.
Nicole
Sarauer: — So how many usable water bombers will
we have if there’s a fire situation prior to July?
Hon. Michael
Weger: — Okay. Prior to July in 2026, the SPSA
will have available the following aircraft to assist with the wildfires. There
are three 580‑A Convair land-based air tankers, one Q400AT land-based air
tanker, seven bird dog Turbo Commander, four CL‑215 turbine amphibious
air tankers, and eight helicopters.
[22:00]
In addition to these aircraft
owned by the SPSA, there will be numerous aircraft available to the SPSA — as
they were last year — through the CIFFC agreement, which is within Canada, and
compacts which allow assets to be brought in internationally. Important to note
that the federal government also has a new multi-million-dollar program
bringing an additional four aircraft that will be available through CIFFC.
And for context, last year in
the month of May, SPSA received one Q400 from Alaska; two CL . . . I
think they were CL‑415s from Quebec; one Q400 from Alaska on May 29th as
well; May 30th, five 802s and one bird dog from Alberta; and then the SPSA also
contracted over 40 additional helicopters last fire season.
Nicole Sarauer: — Thank you. Moving on to the
MNP independent report. It was supposed to be released in February. I
understand there’s been an extension now on that consultation. Can you provide
to the committee when that report will be released?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Thank you for the question. So the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency
commissioned MNP to lead the independent review into the 2025 wildfire season.
It’s important to note that this is the first of its kind in the province.
After discussions with MNP, the SPSA extended the review time frame to support
the consultation process. This extension was granted after the SPSA received
requests from numerous communities and individuals who wanted to engage with
the review, acknowledging the importance of their voices and to ensure the
report is as accurate as possible. The SPSA agreed to receive the report in
late spring 2026.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Could you be a little bit more specific about what you mean by late spring? Has
the ministry received the report?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
No, no. We have not received the report from MNP.
Nicole Sarauer: — When does the ministry
anticipate receiving that report?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So MNP hasn’t given us a specific date for when the report will be complete.
The use of “by the end of spring” was an estimation considering they’re
currently writing the report. They’ve done all the consultation, as I
understand, that’s required. The end of spring would be June 20th, according to
the calendar.
So
I would say that again this is a third party doing this report. And really it’s
a situation of do you want it done right or do you want it done right now. And
so we’re letting MNP do it right, and we expect the report by the end of
spring.
Nicole Sarauer: — It’s unfortunate at this
stage that the report will be received possibly in the fire season. Are there
still any victims of wildfires from last season displaced or in hotels?
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
So I’ll just start with a response to your parting comment after my last
question, because I think I’m entitled to respond by recognizing that this MNP
report is coming in a very timely manner compared to the years that these
reports have taken in other jurisdictions. And I believe my first answer to
your first question directed at the SPSA laid out an extensive list of actions
by the SPSA this year which shows that the SPSA is not waiting or relying on
this report to make positive changes in their wildfire preparations.
With respect to housing, 31
temporary housing units were obtained to support residents in the village of
Denare Beach, and the ministry is not aware of any displaced residents that
don’t have housing. It is always possible that some individuals may be residing
with family, friends, or using insurance to cover costs of alternative living
arrangements.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Thank you. I have more wildfire questions, but I’m cognizant of the time. So
I’m going to pass it on to my colleague Mr. Gordon.
Chair
B. McLeod: — MLA Gordon, please go
ahead.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want
to talk about the small town and rural policing program a bit. I understand
there’s $190,000 allocated in this year’s budget towards that program. I was
hoping you could enlighten the committee tonight as to how this will operate.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Thank you for the question about the STAR program. And so it’s $190,000. And I
was so honoured to be able to attend Corman Park Police Service on April 8th,
where we made an announcement accompanied by Chief Duttchen of the Corman Park
Police Service; reeve of Corman Park, Joe Hargrave.
And at that event, I think
Chief Duttchen gave some very good comments on how this program is going to
work for the Corman Park Police Service. And he talked about the ability to use
this funding to provide equipment; give them the ability to train their
officers to an ever-demanding field of work; talked about the ability to
replace the automated external defibrillators that they carry in their
vehicles; the additional cost for body armour, for all the tools that a police
officer uses, with the intention to supply them with the tools to be competent
and capable.
And so that’s the long answer
to your question. The short answer is that for every officer, the department
receives $10,000 to use as they see fit.
Hugh
Gordon: —
Thank you. And cognizant of the time, Mr. Chair, I was wondering if we could
ask the minister and his team to table that exhaustive list of all the actions
taken on wildfire mitigation and planning for this season that you alluded to
in your answer. You don’t have to have it here. But if you could agree to table
that for the committee at a reasonable time frame, that would be good.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Thank you. And we’ve
reached our agreed-upon time for consideration of these estimates, and I thank
you for that. We will adjourn consideration of the estimates and supplementary
estimates no. 2 for Community Safety.
I want to thank Minister
Weger and the entire group that has been assembled here today. I think you are
to be commended for having, shall I say, endured with us tonight. Sometimes I’m
sure it’s like watching paint dry, but it’s important work and it is absolutely
necessary that we have that full transparency. So helping to provide that
tonight has been really, really appreciated.
Minister, do you have any . . .
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chair.
Chair
B. McLeod: — No, that’s okay. No
problem.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
I just wanted . . . We didn’t get the minister’s full acknowledgement
of that, of the request on the record, so . . .
Chair
B. McLeod: — Yes.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Do you mind if we get that? Then we can do closing remarks. Thank you.
Chair
B. McLeod: — Yeah, we can get . . .
Minister, are you prepared to table the document as asked for? And I apologize.
I should have caught that.
Hon.
Michael Weger: —
Mr. Chair, my suggestion would be that my answer provided a non-exhaustive list
— an extensive list but not exhaustive list — almost impossible to do, Mr.
Chair, considering the work is ongoing and there’d be some of the work that you
may say would be subjective whether it was done as a result of a change in
policy or a review from last year’s wildfire season. So I would just direct the
member to Hansard to review the list that I provided to the
committee tonight.
Chair B. McLeod: — Thank you. And I’m just waiting for the light
to go on here. So that would be the suggestion that comes forward, and that
list, as you indicated, was not exhaustive but it did contain elements that are
recorded in today’s committee meeting. And so that will be referred to.
So
that will close off. And I again thank the officials for their attention and
involvement. And, Minister, do you have any closing comments, please?
Hon. Michael Weger: —
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all the committee members. I do thank
you for your attentiveness at this hour of the evening. And I recognize that
you’ve already gone through some part of committee before we showed up.
So
I hope that everyone in this committee is able to appreciate all of the great
work that these officials that have joined us this evening have been doing. And
you can see . . . I thank everyone for coming today, and there’s a
long list of officials that have taken time out of their evening to come and be
present here to assist in this process as well. And
I think that we can appreciate the work that our ministry is doing, as we are
always making sure that we are making the best use of public dollars, Mr. Chair.
I think that, considering the
time, I’ll make sure I give my thanks to everyone else that is in the room,
whether it’s individuals working Hansard, at the desk with you, Mr.
Chair, and a special thank you to the Clerk and to my chief of staff, Ryan
Bellamy. He’s been such a joy to work with, Mr. Chair, since I’ve recently
taken on this position. He’s an excellent co-pilot on the long-distance trips
we take over questionable roadways at times, and I’m so appreciative that he
hasn’t asked for a transfer yet, Mr. Chair.
So with that, again, thank
you to everyone for being here, and I’ll pass it back to you.
Chair
B. McLeod: — And thank you, Minister
Weger. And I just want to say my apologies for the omission of not catching the
response to that last question. And I did hear it, and I should have
acknowledged it. And I apologize for that. Any closing comments from the committee
members? Please, MLA Sarauer.
Nicole
Sarauer: —
Please, thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to, on behalf of my colleagues,
first of all thank you, Mr. Chair, for your work this evening as well as the
rest of the committee members. Appreciate your attentiveness at this late hour,
committee, staff.
And then, Minister, thank you
for your responses to our questions and of course to all of your officials in
Community Safety, many of whom I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know and
work parallel to over this last several years. Thank you so much for your
service on behalf of the province, for yourselves and all of the public
servants that you represent here this evening. So thank you for that work.
And apologies if we didn’t
get to questions that were related to . . . We have lots of
questions; unfortunately we never get to all of them in an evening. But just
know that that doesn’t diminish the work that you do in our eyes. So thank you
very much.
Also thank you to Hansard
of course and broadcast services and all staff in the Legislative Building.
Thank you.
Chair
B. McLeod: — It being past 10:30, this
committee stands adjourned now to the call of the Chair. Thank you.
[The committee adjourned at
22:35.]
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