Between retirements and new provincial funding, the Moose Jaw Police Service is looking for 16 new officers over the next two years.
Police Chief Rick Bourassa said three people have been identified by their most recent recruitment process, and they’re looking to send them to the Saskatchewan Police College in January. “We were hoping to have four – we just didn’t have four that made it all the way through the process,” he said.
It remains to be seen how many spots MJPS will get at the police college for January. “We will find out at the end of this month how many positions we will have at the college,” explained Bourassa.
Acting Superintendent Cam Lewis said that the Saskatchewan Police College is looking to increase their capacity. “They know every other municipal agency got provincial funding and is going to be having the same demands that we are, or similar, and they are anticipating that for 2026 and forward.”
“It sounds like their capacity is going to be increasing as soon as January [2025], and perhaps even more so in the subsequent July 2025 and January 2026 [intakes],” he added.
The MJPS had two applicants in both the January and July intakes in 2024.
The local police force is aiming to have all three of their identified applicants sent to the college in January 2025, and Lewis said they’re hoping to get six applicants in the July 2025 class.
Lewis said police services across Canada are seeing issues with getting an acceptable quantity and quality of applicants.
“We are already working towards the next group, which would start employment in July 2025. We are actively recruiting people – we are attending lots of other events to increase that initial quantity of applications, so we can expand our pool.”
MJPS is working on a recruitment video, intending to air it at Warriors home games, and the organization continues to attend career fairs at colleges and universities in Saskatchewan and neighbouring provinces to attract new officers.
The minimum requirement to be an officer is a high school diploma.