Sask. police get nearly $500k to expand police and crisis team program

The province is expanding the Police and Crisis Team (PACT) programs in Saskatoon and Regina with $468,800 in an effort to divert more people experiencing mental health crises away from hospitals and jail cells.

The program, which is a collaboration between the Saskatchewan Health Authority, the provincial government and local police services, pairs a mental health professional with a police officer to stabilize and care for people having mental health emergencies.

“The mental healthcare worker is essentially the lead in that investigation,” Saskatoon Police Service Superintendent Dave Haye said Friday during a news conference announcing the expansion.

“We're there to make sure that everybody's safe and that we offer our professional expertise … but it's a mental healthcare worker we rely on. In modern policing, that's the direction we're going.”

The additional funding will add a police officer in Regina and Saskatoon at a cost of roughly $240,000.

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Haye says the funding boost will allow Saskatoon police to add a fourth team, which will now have teams working seven days a week.

“Reducing attendance in emergency rooms is one factor, but also we're reducing victimization. Because often people who suffer from a mental health crisis end up being victimized and we want to reduce victimization as well,” Haye said.

Martensville-Warman MLA Terry Jensen said discussions are ongoing to introduce PACT to more communities in Saskatchewan.

“The number of calls does increase year over year and the Ministry of Corrections Policing and Public Safety have made it quite known that we want to continue this relationship and explore ways that we can improve this, and I think increasing the number of PACT teams would be part of that discussion,” he said.

In the 2023-24 Budget, the province is investing a total of $2.833 million in the PACT initiative — $1.373 million of which is to fund 12 police positions in Saskatoon (three), Regina (three), Moose Jaw (two), Prince Albert (one), Estevan (one), Yorkton (one) and North Battleford (one).

The Ministry of Health will provide the SHA with $1.06 million toward the PACT mental health professional component, according to a provincial news release.

In 2021-22, PACT teams were involved in 4,676 police calls for service, performed over 5,000 PACT assessments, and diverted more than 1,300 clients from emergency departments across the province.

On Thursday, the Saskatoon Board of Police Commissioners received an annual update on the program.

Officers responded to 2,614 calls in 2022, an increase of 38 per cent from 2021 when the team responded to 1,894 calls, according to the report. Based on the average cost of admitting someone to an emergency room at $800 per visit, in 2022, the unit indicates it saved the province $356,000 last year by diverting 445 people from emergency room visits.

With another funding boost for the coming year, Haye says Saskatoon police will continue to work towards diverting people away from emergency rooms and keeping people faci.ng a mental health emergency out of the criminal justice system.