REGINA — The province is touting increased funding in the provincial budget toward the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol (SHP).
At a media event at the weigh scale outside Regina on Highway 11, Minister of Community Safety Michael Weger pointed to funding for the SHP going up by $713,000 in the 2026-27 budget to $8.5 million.
According to the province, this increased funding will expand the highway patrol’s operational capacity and enable it to hire five additional traffic officers.
“This year's investment will strengthen enforcement, improve response times, and increase Highway Patrol's visibility on our highways,” Weger said.
“Visibility matters. It sends a clear message that unsafe driving and criminal activity are not welcome in Saskatchewan. This investment is about protecting Saskatchewan families, communities, highways, and infrastructure.
It supports Highway Patrol's work to disrupt organized crime, recover lost tax revenue, and help keep unsafe commercial vehicles off our roads. It ensures our province remains strong, safe, and secure as we grow.”
Weger said the SHP is often called upon as members of the Provincial Protection and Response Team, or PRT, to respond to emergency calls for service.
“Along with conservation officers and the Saskatchewan Marshals Service, Saskatchewan Highway Patrol can be asked to respond to calls involving drug trafficking, serious collisions, property crimes in progress, and other emergency situations. Our Highway Patrol officers are always ready to respond to PRT calls for service. This investment will help ensure they are able to respond more quickly to these calls and more effectively support other joint operations and targeted enforcement initiatives.”
Greg Park, superintendent of the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol, spoke of how this funding will help the Highway Patrol on the frontlines.
“This additional funding strengthens our operational capacity and our ability to deliver consistent, effective enforcement across the province,” Park said.
“It allows us to expand our presence on key corridors, increase patrol coverage, and ensure our resources are deployed where they can make the greatest impact. A stronger presence on provincial highways means our officers can provide more consistent patrols, quicker response times to protection and response team calls, and more support for our policing partners when necessary.”
He said commercial vehicle safety is “a core part of our mandate.” He noted that last year the Highway Patrol completed over 8,000 commercial vehicle inspections and issued over 4,000 tickets for traffic safety violations.
Of inspections conducted along the province's primary highway network, he said over 30 per cent resulted in vehicles being taken off the road due to mechanical defects.
Park said the increased budget will allow the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol to “increase inspection capacity and remove more unsafe vehicles from Saskatchewan roads.” He said it will also strengthen its ability to intercept illicit tobacco shipments.
“Since 2022, our officers have seized more than 78.3 million illicit cigarettes as they move through the province. This is a growing issue that affects public safety and provincial revenues in the form of lost tax revenue. Enhanced enforcement capacity allows our officers to better target high traffic corridors where these shipments often take place.”
Minister Weger indicated that the increased funding should result in even more proactive enforcement.
“Well, $713,000 additional increase to the budget, approximately five extra highway patrol officers — so right there you're just going to see more presence on the highways and give them that opportunity to be more proactive with engaging with drivers on our highways and checking the safety of their vehicles that they're driving and operating.”
Park said one proactive measure they take is going into different companies that request their help.
“We'll talk about drivers log books, we'll talk about road safety, we'll talk about vehicle safety, all those kind of things add up to the proactive enforcement piece,” Park said. “So it's not seen on the roadside but it's actually seen before they get to roadside so that's one way that we could help and having more officers across the province is going to allow us to get to more locations and spread that message throughout the province so it's easier for everyone when they get to that roadside stop.”
As for the possibility of 24-7 coverage down the line, Weger said the province is “always looking at expanding our capacity and we know that the more often we can have the weigh scales open and have officers on our highways the safer everything will be.”
