In mid-October the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) hosted a two-day Policing and Community Safety Gathering at the Saskatoon Inn and Conference Centre.
The event brought together First Nations leaders, policing partners, and community
safety staff to map out the next steps toward self-administered First Nations policing
across PAGC’s 12 member Nations.
PAGC Vice Chief Joseph Tsannie said the purpose of the gathering was to be a progress report.
“We have until March to finish the feasibility study,” Tsannie said. “What that entails is a lot of community engagements, (and) talking to the stakeholders.”
This will involve going to all 28 communities in the 12 First Nations under the PAGC banner.
“We’re going in, doing a lot of engagement with the communities,” Tsannie said.
“Back in 2017, we got the mandate from our chiefs to start looking at the possibility of having our First Nations run an Indigenous police force to serve 28 of our northern communities.”
Since 2017, Tsannie said they have met with public safety officials and worked from the ground up.
“(For) 152 years the RCMP, the Royal Mountain Police, have been serving our communities. It’s about opportunities, about building our capacity. We have a lot of young people who are graduating, looking for opportunities, things to do,” Tsannie said.
“In a way, we want to give them opportunities and get our people working in the police force, so since 2017, it’s about building relationship, getting to know the business of policing, public safety with the province, within Canada, knowing who’s who.”
Sessions at the gathering covered national and provincial policing models, community safety planning and the transition process toward a future PAGC police service rooted in sovereignty, safety and local accountability.
In 2022, the Government of Saskatchewan, the Government of Canada and the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) signed an agreement to explore new, community-oriented ways to deliver police services and improve safety in First Nations communities.
The signing took place at the 2022 PAGC Annual Assembly at the Prince Albert Exhibition Centre.
“We signed that agreement to start the process of that feasibility study, the work that needs to be done,” Tsannie said.
“The unique thing about this is we had lots of community engagement going into communities, talking to individuals how they want to see policing.
Tsannie said community engagement is an important aspect because each community has different challenges.
Tsannie said they are currently working on the internal evaluation of the RCMP with MNP.
“They go in, (and ask) what services they’re providing, what service are underfunded, et cetera. All the database, how much flying they do, how many officers we have in our communities, what type of support staff, admin staff, putting all of that pieces together.
He explained that the conference was a piece of the feasibility study. The next step will be wrapping up the report by March, 2026.
‘Once we have that report, we’ll present that to our communities and our leadership and the chiefs will decide yay or nay if we’re moving ahead on the initiative. If that’s what they want in their communities moving forward,” Tsannie said.
Overall Tsannie is pleased with the progress that has been made on the internal policing agenda since 2017.
“It’s been a long time but we are making progress,” he said. “Things are falling into place and it’s sounding positive. People are excited. Some communities can’t wait, they want the service right now. But we want to make sure that we take baby steps and slowly roll out.”
Tsannie said the community roll out would be in steps and eventually involve all northern communities.
“We have a lot of First Nations, Indigenous police. They’re currently serving either with the police, the RCMP, or city police across this province and across Canada that have been reaching out and yeah they want to play a role they want to be part of this police service,” Tsannie said. “Everybody seems to be excited anyways with how things are going.”
The matter was not on the agenda at the PACG Annual Assembly this year but Tsannie expects it at the 2026 version if all goes according to plan.
At the PAGC Annual Assembly on Tuesday at the Prince Albert Exhibition Centre Christopher Jobb was re-elected Vice-Chief of Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC).
Approximately 240 votes were cast and Jobb achieved majority on the second ballot.
Jobb was first elected in 2016 and will now serve his fourth term.
