This weekend, people by the thousands will be taking to the highways throughout Saskatchewan for a variety of events. The big one for many is Country Thunder Saskatchewan, which runs through Sunday in Craven. There is also the All Folk'd Up festival in Montmartre, southeast of Regina, as well as the Roughriders game at Mosaic Stadium. These are just a few of the events happening in the province. With all of these events taking place, the RCMP is doing what they can to help ensure people can get to these events safely and return home from them safely.
To make their presence known, a traffic safety checkpoint was set up in Chamberlain on Highway 11 on Wednesday and Thursday. There, officers conducted a number of stops, doing everything from checking the sobriety of drivers to ensuring those behind the wheel had the proper licence, to making sure the vehicle was registered.
"I think the biggest thing to keep focused on is road safety," said Superintendent Grant St. Germain, the officer in charge of F Division Traffic Services and the Combined Traffic Services Section.
He noted that the main thing they are looking for is impaired driving, whether by drugs or alcohol, as Country Thunder is heavily associated with parties.
"With regard to consumption, whether it's alcohol or drugs if you're going to do it, there's a place that’s okay, and the place that’s not okay is driving on the highway, so we’re out basically doing check stops," St. Germain continued.
The traffic safety checkpoint in Chamberlain is one way to increase the presence of police. To help with this presence, the RCMP won't rely on pulling officers from detachments throughout the province. Rather, it will be the Traffic Services units that will handle the duties, with a little help.
"In this instance, we're utilizing the officers from Saskatchewan Highway Patrol, who we partner up with on quite a few of the check stops that we do," St. Germain explained. The RCMP officers come from 17 different traffic units across the province. Members from the regular detachments are generally not called upon for the weekend as they are already busy dealing with situations in their local area.
One of the main things officers have been noticing lately is the increase in the number of people who are driving while impaired by drugs, including cannabis. St. Germain pointed to the situation on Wednesday at the checkpoint in Chamberlain as an example.
Speaking on Thursday morning, St. Germain said, "We just started this checkpoint this morning, day two of it, and I think we've already ended up with six or seven suspensions for drug use, and we've only been here for an hour."
During the first day of the checkpoint on Wednesday, officers impounded 20 vehicles, 19 of them for cannabis use.
"What was interesting about that was, if you were thinking about who you would be looking for, we got people going to Craven and they're going to enjoy the weekend, I don't think we had anybody who was going to Craven," St. Germain noted about those who lost their vehicles. "We had people who were driving work vehicles, we had one individual who had a young infant or young child in a car seat in the vehicle; just not what we were expecting to see and a little bit concerning for us."
The superintendent noted that the rules for cannabis use in Saskatchewan are that there is zero tolerance for cannabis in your system under provincial regulations. This means that if you do use cannabis, the screening systems will show if you have any in your system.
"So, you're not necessarily impaired, and you're not necessarily getting charged with impaired driving, but if there's cannabis in your system, you end up with a suspension and your vehicle being impounded," St. Germain added.
For those who are planning to stay at their festival or event of choice right through the weekend and heading back home on Monday, St. Germain had another reminder for people. Just because the party is over doesn't mean you are magically sober enough to drive.
"So, with alcohol in your system, there's an absorption rate, and there's also a rate at which you eliminate the alcohol from your system, and if you've had a few too many, it can take up to 10 to 12 hours for that alcohol to dissipate out of your system so that you're safe to drive."
He used an example of someone who stops drinking at 5:00 a.m., sleeps for four hours, and thinks they are good to go at 9:00 a.m. The problem is that they will likely still be significantly impaired even if they seemingly have regained some of their faculties.
The goal for what the RCMP would consider a successful weekend on the highways, though, is a simple one – not having to arrest anyone for impaired driving, be it by drugs or alcohol.
"If the numbers are there, and we check however many vehicles and we don't find any impaired drivers, all that says to me is that the programs we're utilizing, whether it's education or the prevention stuff, media, are working and that we're keeping impaired drivers off the road."