MLA Herb Cox. MBC file photo.
The Saskatchewan Caucus Committee on Crime Reduction is making stops in La Ronge and La Loche this week.
Herb Cox, the MLA for The Battlefords, is heading the caucus meetings, which are being held at the request of the premier.
In a late November Sask. Party news release, Premier Brad Wall was quoted as saying “One of the main concerns I hear as I travel around Saskatchewan is crime,” and that the province “must be a safe place where people feel protected from crime.”
The group has been tasked with making recommendations on how to reduce crime, which will be provided to the province’s cabinet.
The La Ronge stop on Wednesday was the ninth in a string of meetings between the committee and different organizations, policing groups, and municipal leaders.
“The reason we’ve gone to as many communities as we have in the province is that we realize there are different issues in different parts of the province. So our reason for wanting to come here is to want to listen to what the issues are in this part of the province,” Cox said.
In early December, an RCMP memo leaked to CKOM News revealed internal RCMP concerns about a 15 per cent vacancy rate of officers in the northern division. Cox said he hasn’t heard specific concerns about that.
“I think some of that is being rectified but we don’t have any concrete numbers on that at this particular point in time,” he said.
There won’t be any public meetings.
“We’re meeting one-on-one with presenters, it’s not an open meeting. We thought this is the best way to have people speak frankly to us rather than at an open, public forum,” he said.
Cox said RCMP response times are among the items being brought up in his meetings all over the province.
“That’s something we’ve heard in some of the rural areas that they’d like to see maybe a shorter response time for RCMP but of course this is a vast province with great distances between one town or one centre and another so that’s always been a factor and I think that’s something that we’re definitely going to look at,” he said.
So far, he’s been hearing that drugs are a big driver of crime.
Cox said he is keeping an open mind on what concerns will be brought forward when they head to La Loche on Thursday.