Province to beef up border security
January 20, 2025, 2:22 pm
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Security at the province’s international border is about to be strengthened, resulting from the Saskatchewan Border Security Plan. Essentially, the plan makes for easier mobilization of Provincial Protective Services officers to work alongside provincial policing services and federal agencies to enhance the overall presence near the border.
“We already have significant law enforcement teams spread across the province strategically, doing all sorts of work that supports border integrity, and that would be on the international border, but as well the interprovincial borders in stopping the illicit drug trade from passing through our province, or certainly from stopping in our province, making sure that we’re keeping drugs off the streets,” said Corrections, Policing and Public Safety Minister Tim McLeod. “The redeployment is happening as we speak, of the initial response, which is the 16 officers as well as canine handling teams and the additional patrol vehicles, the ATVs, the drones, that sort of thing. All of that work is happening currently as we speak and we’ll continue to monitor and evaluate to see if next phases of the plan are necessary and appropriate.”
When asked if the move was in response to pressure from the U.S., or if this plan had been in place previously, McLeod replied, “it’s a bit of both.”
“Looking at warrant enforcement teams and Human Trafficking Prevention, that work is already going on, and when our largest economic trading partner, being the United States, raises a concern about wanting to have discussions and further increase border security, we’re certainly going to pay attention to that,” he said. “If we increase border security, that benefits both sides of the border.”
Effective immediately, 16 officers will be redeployed from conservation, Saskatchewan Highway Patrol and canine-handler teams to perform regular patrols and public safety campaigns near the border. These officers are meant as an additional resource to forces already in place, providing more resources to regions that need added attention.
“We leave the on-border security and integrity to the Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP, that’s their jurisdiction,” McLeod said. “We’re not overlapping or encroaching upon their jurisdiction in any way, but we can certainly redeploy existing resources to high-priority areas that would address all of those concerns, to make sure that we’re not leaving any gaps beyond what security the CBSA and the RCMP have at the border.”
Last year, provincially-funded law enforcement seized more than $17 million in illegal items, including 88 kg of drugs (with an approximate street value of $8 million) and over one million packs of illegal tobacco (approximate street value of $9.1 million). Police also intercepted around 400 illegal firearms and confiscated over $700,000 in cash during investigations.
“Our policing services interact and collaborate and co-operate all the time, and have shown a great level of success in the last year alone,” McLeod said. “We’ve had tens of millions of dollars in seizures of illegal weapons, illegal tobacco, illicit drugs—all of those successes with the existing work that they were already doing. Now we can continue with that work and further enhance it with our new border security plan.”
Given the number of successful seizures, criminal activity continues to slip through the cracks despite best efforts. McLeod is determined that this new strategy will make an impact.
“We’re going to continue to pursue them,” he said. “As long as there’s criminal activity, we’ll continue to police it and enforce, making sure that we’re keeping our communities safe and our people of the province safe from illegal activity.”
Also under the new strategy is the ability to divert up to 95 officers in a surge capacity in order to help federal border agencies should a big event happen at the border.
“The immediate response is to redeploy 16 officers, but we do have surge capacity up to 95 officers, if the evidence suggests, and the intelligence suggests that we need to surge up beyond our initial response, and certainly the border integrity and intervention team with Saskatchewan Marshall Service would be part of that 95 surge capacity,” McLeod explained when asked if the SMS might play a role once becoming operational.
He also added that the redistribution of officers will not put a strain on policing resources in southern communities—many that are already stretched to their limits in terms of staffing.
“We expect it will have a very positive effect,” McLeod said. “We’ve been very careful and deliberate in our planning and the strategy around this plan to make sure that we are in no way compromising or detracting from existing services, rather that we’re complementing them and enhancing them.”
McLeod credited the efforts of police services at all levels for their tireless devotion toward public safety.
“We really want to thank our partners in all levels of policing, whether it’s the provincial service or the municipal services or the RCMP,” he said. “The excellent work that they’re doing every day to make sure that our people in our communities stay safe, and the collaboration that they show between them and the service that they provide to the province, we can’t thank them enough.”
