REGINA – Regina Police Service is the latest municipal police service getting a boost to their numbers of frontline officers, thanks to a dose of provincial funding.
RPS is receiving $1.7 million from the province’s Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods initiative to assist with recruiting and retaining 27 officers.
This follows similar announcements last week for police forces in Weyburn, Estevan, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert. In total, the province says SCAN is providing $6 million to municipal police forces to hire 100 additional officers, with the SCAN funding being an ongoing commitment by the province.
At the funding announcement at Regina Police headquarters on Monday, Minister of Community Safety Michael Weger said this was “our government recognizing that yes, policing is the responsibility of the municipality, but we can help out. And if we want, in Regina in particular, to be a place where people want to move to, raise their families, start a business, we need to know that it needs to be safe. And that’s good for the city of Regina, and that’s good for the province of Saskatchewan.”
Regina Police Chief Lorilee Davies welcomed the provincial funding, pointing out that it comes during a time of financial pressure and fiscal restraint at Regina City Hall.
“We know that our city is currently in a challenging financial position, so the provincial investment of $1.7 million dollars in staffing is very welcome. We would otherwise have been unable to add new officers to our service at this time,” said Davies.
As for how many of the 27 officer they have hired, Davies said they currently have 10 officers in training at the Saskatchewan Police College, and have hired three experienced members as well since the start of the year. Davies also said they are looking to hire at least 10 more for the July recruit training class. The plan is to get all the remaining positions into training by the end of the year.
The priority is to get more police officers onto the frontlines and into visible roles in the community. Mayor Chad Bachynski said that is something he has heard from residents.
“One of the biggest things I hear is people want more visibility of police in our community,” said Bachynski. “When there’s even an officer, you know, taking a moment to finish up paperwork around the corner… that’s a corner that there’s visibility. People feel safer knowing that there’s somebody there in case, you know, something were to happen… So, having money that directly goes to hiring officers is a big step in the right direction.”
Police Chief Davies noted that during their 2025 Community Perceptions Surveys, respondents had said that improving police visibility should be one of their top areas for improvement.
Davies said RPS has been “very fortunate in working with the city over the past number of years to grow our frontline.”
“But there is always a need. Obviously, crime is complex, more complex than ever. We are responding to more calls than we ever have. And so we need to increase that resourcing in order to respond effectively.”
In addition to greater visibility, the additional officers are also expected to greatly help in improving the response times. Davies said one of their needs is to have police officers available for 911 call responses.
“We have expectations from the community that we’re able to get to those emergencies in a timely manner, and we need to be adequately staffed to be able to do that.“
