Province considering SCAN unit for P.A.

“It is a program that has had good results across the province,” McFee said. The program fits into what he refers to as a “continuum,” in which the province is trying to get to problems at their “lowest level.” This way, the province would be removing people from the justice system.

SCAN can deal with complaints through agreements or its director of community operations can apply for a community safety order from the Court of Queen’s Bench to have a property vacated, a lease terminated or a property closed for 90 days.

“Certainly it’s something we see the benefit in pursuing, and we are working on that and hopefully in the not too distant future, you know, we’re going to take the steps that we can to try to make that a reality too,” he said of a locally based SCAN unit.

Right now, there’s a high volume of work in the two major urban centres, McFee said. He said they will need to look at the nature of the calls north of Saskatoon and how to ensure the best response time.

“There’s obviously some components to Prince Albert that make a lot of … sense and that [is] something we’ve obviously looked at in the mix.”

Since SCAN was created in 2005, it has dealt with 5,077 complaints which involve drugs, prostitution, gangs and organized crime. There were 149 calls related to marijuana grow operations. The remainder of calls were related to alcohol.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames

by Thia James

Province considering SCAN unit for P.A.

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