WEYBURN – Premier Scott Moe has weighed in with his reaction to the June 1 shooting incident in Pelican Narrows in which a woman was killed and a man was injured.
The incident has prompted much discussion about how to address crime issues in that area of the province, with Pelican Narrows seeing a sharp rise in crime and violence in the past weeks.
When asked about the latest shooting incident by reporters in Weyburn at the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show, Moe said he did not have details on it, except to say “first and foremost when these types of things happen, and I think there was a couple of either connected or unconnected events in our northern area, is that we always think of family and friends.”
“Loss is a terrible thing, in particular unnecessary loss of life like we witnessed here this week, and so we would offer our condolences to those that were close to this individual, and in particular the family that we know will have loved them.”
Moe added that he thought it “speaks to the broader initiative, not far from violent acts like this” where you will find “addictions and drugs” and “all that precipitates, whether it's crime or whether it's violent, whether it's theft or whether it's violence.”
Moe pledged that “we need to continue to do better,” and said that means offering additional recovery opportunities but also enforcement.
“We're doing everything that we can to expand the tools that our enforcement agencies have to keep our community safe, because whether you be in Pelican Narrows, whether it be in Prince Albert or Weyburn, we want families to be able to be safe and feel safe and be able to go to the park after supper as a family and utilize that park, for instance.”
Premier Moe also said his government has “been in contact often with the federal government on some opportunities to enhance some of the bail provisions, some of the criminal law in Canada, but we've also been moving into the space with the Street Weapons Act, the Compassionate Intervention Act, and other things too, and other provincial pieces of legislation that are supporting that very safety.”
