At the most recent Board of Police Commissioners meeting in Estevan, a discussion was held about the provincial government's The Safe Public Spaces (Street Weapons) Act. The act focuses on giving municipal police members expanded powers to deal with breaches of public safety.
Estevan City Councillor Tom Mauss raised the question as to whether they should adopt the act, with Estevan Police Chief Jamie Blunden giving his opinion on the act.
"Anytime you can add a tool to our tool belt and give us some more options to use, I think it's beneficial. It speaks to the possession and use of a hypodermic needle, of fentanyl, and methamphetamine. Right now, presently, we sort of have a de facto decriminalization, because the Crown prosecutors will not prosecute any possession charges. So we don't charge for possession unless it's on a substantive charge of something else, and we find drugs on them."
The act would be about giving options to police, as Blunden says, while they don't have the same concerns as forces of larger cities, having the option is better than not.
"For us, with this act, it'll allow us to actually seize the drugs, charge under this act, lay a fine, and give us some more options to be able to deal with that if we want to. We don't have the same sort of issues we have that they have in the bigger cities, like with the machetes, the knives, but it does give us the option that if we do come across, which we do have some, under some individuals out there, that do carry, it would give us an option to be able to deal with that under this legislation."
Blunden says while the municipalities do have the capability of making their own bylaws on the matter, the province wanted to create one uniform piece of legislation across Saskatchewan.
"What they've done is because they recognize that most municipalities, this would be beneficial to them; instead of having each municipality work on something that's somewhat different than other ones, they've created one legislation that's uniform across the province."
"Quite frankly, coming from Manitoba here, there's a lot more oversight, there's a lot more uniformity, and a collaboration amongst all the police services and legislation to fit in every single municipality. I think that's my impression of what their reasoning for creating this legislation was, to keep it uniform, and allow the municipalities to make it easier just to adopt it into a bylaw."
City Councillor Kirsten Walliser asked for Blunden's opinion on the act excluding knives under 30 centimetres from portions of the act.
"I think the 30 centimetres was in relation to the larger knives that they see going on, but that doesn't mean that a smaller knife wouldn't be worthy of having. We don't have to enforce it. It becomes the discretion of the officer when they go down, and there are also parts of the legislation that allow, for instance, workers who are carrying utility knives and stuff."
Deputy Chief Warren Morrical also talked about the issue of utility knives and how they might approach a public situation.
"The other element that plays into the seizure of those devices that are being displayed, for example, in public, is the ability for us to issue the ticket and seize, at least temporarily, that device and have them make applications for the court to get it back and recognize that the circumstance that they're wearing it is not appropriate. You deal with that instead of a criminal code possession of weapons, a dangerous aspect to the public. You deal with it more or less as a ticket, where it could be a $150, $200 ticket for the incentive to pay and make an application to get their weapon back and recognize that it's not appropriate to do that."
Walliser's second question was around the usage of the phrase "reasonably demonstrates" as a part of the act, as she gives an example of it not being unlawful to possess fentanyl if the person can reasonably demonstrate that their possession does not constitute a threat to public safety.
Walliser states that the section feels open-ended, and wonders if that would cause administrative problems with officers needing to show that they're following the guidelines.
Blunden replies that he's confident officers will be able to show reasonability well.
"I think when we look at it as police officers, reasonable and probable grounds is probably the word we use the most. So when we talk about reasonable and probable, this to me is on a lower level of standards and quite frankly, I think it's going to be easy for our members to show reasonable in a case, whether it's fentanyl or not."
"I can show you that the size of a salt grain is reasonable, if someone has that fentanyl, to say it's caused deaths in the past. So I don't think it's a far stretch to say that the members are going to be able to show that it's reasonable under the circumstances. If it's not, we have supervisors out there that have common sense and can obviously assist with making sure that we stay within those parameters to make sure it's reasonable."
Morrical stated that the number of charges would be substantial from the act, and if the act does end up with dozens of charges, they would bring it back to the board and reassess.
Bard member Roberta Derosier asked if there was anything in the document that the EPS did not want adopted, which Blunden said was not the case.
"I think we've given it a reading, and I think we're comfortable with it. I think most of the police services throughout Saskatchewan, and at the chief's level, the Saskatchewan chiefs of police, are all made up of all the executive members. So the deputy chiefs, the inspectors, superintendents, we're all supportive of it."
The board elected to adopt the motion as originally presented by the province.