The new permanent chief of the Prince Albert Police Service (PAPS) has officially been introduced.
Patrick Nogier spoke to media Monday morning at Prince Albert City Hall. The city’s board of police commissioners announced his appointment as the permanent chief of PAPS in a media release sent out last week.
After being introduced by the board of police commissioner’s current chair Janet Carriere, Nogier read from a prepared statement where he thanked the community and police service for their support. He as well spoke about some of the changes that have been made to the police service to improve operations. This has included changes in terms of call prioritization and an alternative call response program. Nogier said he has also been impressed with the performance of the people within the police service.
“The last four months have been challenging, however I have been very impressed by the professionalism exhibited by those who have been directly involved,” he said.
After reading his prepared remarks the new chief took questions from media. When asked about his engagement with the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC), Nogier said since coming on board with PAPS in the summer he has been in communication with the tribal council.
“Early upon arriving I knew that they were one of the external partners that would play a big role in the community,” he said.
Nogier said he was contacted by people from the PAGC not long after being appointed interim chief. He added many people at PAPS already had relationships with people at PAGC, which helped early on. The new chief said he plans on keeping the lines of communications open.
“You have to ensure that you continue down those roads and continue with that engagement and that will be one of my priorities moving forward, is to ensure that we have a good network of communication back and forth,” he said.
(Photo by Michael Joel-Hansen.)
Before coming to P.A., Nogier spent 30 years working for the Saskatoon Police Service in various roles. He explained policing in a city like P.A. can be different then working in a larger center like Saskatoon as police in both places are dealing with many of the same issues, but in P.A. officers have fewer resources to work with.
“Prince Albert is a very unique city to police, because it has big city issues, it has homelessness, addictions,” he said.
When asked if there will be a push to get more police officers on the street in the city with help from the provincial government, Nogier said statistically speaking P.A. is in a good position when it comes to the number of police officers currently working in the city per capita. He explained the police service will be looking at making changes in how they police the community, which will include ensuring the service is representative.
“We’re going to make sure that we have men and women that are representative of this community so they can have an impact when policing,” he said.
(Top Photo: New PAPS Chief Patrick Nogier. Photo by Michael Joel-Hansen.)