photo credit: Saskatoon Police Service

The Saskatoon Police Service will not be meeting staffing projections for 2025, with 24 officers short of a full complement. 

At the Saskatoon Board of Police Commissioners meeting on Thursday, Police Chief Cam McBride stated the SPS originally anticipated receiving 17 members from the July class at the Saskatchewan Police College but has since been notified that it will only be getting eight. 

“The last I saw, based on approved positions we could hire for frontline police work, I think it was 32, and we just hired the eight that the Saskatchewan Police College would allow us to send in July.”

This leaves the Police Service 24 officers short of a full complement. 

However, the College also promised to allocate 34 seats to the Saskatoon Police Service in 2026 to make up for the loss.

McBride then sent a letter to the Ministry of Policing requesting an opportunity to fill this one-year gap by conducting a one-time in-house training session for new police. 

“We have the capacity. We have the subject matter experts. We have the facility, and I believed wholeheartedly that we could do that in fall, but that request was rejected based, I think, predominantly on the fact that the College believes they are addressing our concerns in 2026, and they are, certainly, but that future plan doesn’t address today’s need.”

In other SPS news, officers are reminding motorcycle drivers to pay attention to City speed limits. 

McBride stated traffic officers have clocked several bikes traveling over 100 kilometres an hour within the city. 

 “Motorcycles have been clocked within the City of Saskatoon recently at 208 kilometres an hour in a 90 zone, 185 kilometres an hour in an 80 zone, and 180 kilometres an hour in a 90 zone.”

On a separate, more positive topic, he shared that the SPS Service Centre has extended its hours to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week following a service reduction during the Covid-19 pandemic.