The province originally announced plans for the Saskatchewan Marshals Service in November 2022, with legislation laying the foundation for the new police service being introduced on November 7, 2023.
Chief Marshal Rob Cameron was hired a few weeks later and comes to the job with an extensive career in law enforcement.
Following his retirement from the RCMP, he served as the province's executive director of policing and, in 2019, was appointed as the assistant deputy minister for policing and community safety services.
Cameron took part in the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Annual General Meeting to update producers on what's happening with the newly formed agency.
The Saskatchewan Marshal Service has been designed to enhance policing in the province, focusing on high-profile, high-impact crimes like gangs, illegal weapons, drugs, and a variety of other serious crimes.
Another key mandate will be agricultural crimes like cattle thefts, metal thefts, trespassing, chemical thefts, and more.
Cameron notes that collaboration will be key for their success and law enforcement in general.
"I think in today's world we have to see law enforcement agencies and police services working together because the criminals are moving from area to area. You know, they can be up in PA (Prince Albert) one day, and they can be down in Swift Current the next, and they can cross borders. We need to work with all of our partners to make sure that we can effectively tackle this crime issue. And that's one of the purposes of the Marshalls is to really enhance that policing presence in the Province here, to aid and provide support to other Law Enforcement."
He adds that along with collaboration is communication, adding they'll be connecting with a lot of police services, from the RCMP to our provincial protective services, and cross-border police services because crime doesn't stay in one jurisdiction, it moves around.
"The police force of jurisdiction will always have primary control of a scene. So if there was an incident, doesn't matter what it is, but if there's a serious incident. The police force's jurisdiction has the authority and the control of that scene, if they ask the marshals to come in and give them a hand."
Cameron points out that if SMS is doing an independent investigation, they would make sure that the other police services know they are in the area and what they were doing and would have the opportunity to take part.
"That way, we avoid that whole risk and you don't end up with a situation where, first of all, you interrupt each other's investigations because that's never going to be effective. But the other part of that is the safety issue. We want to make sure that we don't have, you know, what's sometimes called the blue-on-blue situation. Where we have one set of cops that doesn't know the other set of cops is there and we get into a dangerous situation."
During his presentation to the Saskatchewan Stock Growers on Tuesday, he unveiled the new Saskatchewan Marshal Services insignia and badge.
The Saskatchewan Marshals Service will have a total of 70 officers plus support services.
He says on the support services side, they've started the hiring process and are looking for superintendents and inspectors.
"I just hired the deputy chief and there will be an announcement coming very soon. As well, we've hired our executive director for the operations support side, people are starting to get hired. We're starting to see some building of the service already."
On the service side, the first phase of recruitment is going to be experienced police officers, people that have a background in policing, who are active now and have been active for the last three years or so.
"Once we're done with that, then we'll look at what phase two is looking for recruitment out of the public. So like other police services, you know, you have somebody coming in and going through the police college, starting their career, and then hopefully staying with us for 30 years."
He notes that the first district headquarters for the Saskatchewan Marshal Services will be set up at Prince Albert, but adds they are currently reviewing crime trends and severity to determine where they will be setting up the other field offices.