Emergency response management rejigged

REGINA The Saskatchewan government is looking to improve emergency response efforts and “enhance” safety by amalgamating its resources.

The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) was created in November 2017 as a Treasury Board Crown corporation, but has basically been inactive since.

Now it will have fire safety elements from the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Government Relations rolled into it.

The wildfire management branch from the environment ministry and the emergency management and fire safety responsibilities from government relations will become part of the SPSA.

Wildfire management had a budget of $61.4 million this year, while emergency management and fire safety was a $4.8 -million line item.

Those numbers will remain the same for the remainder of the fiscal year as the transition into the SPSA continues.

But whether funding remains stable — around that $65-million total — is unclear.

“It’s going to be very difficult to determine that at this time. We certainly don’t expect it to be any more than that and over time we’ll be finding some efficiencies by having the two entities put together, but as it stands right now that will be very close to its operating budget,” Government Relations Minister Warren Kaeding said.

Environment Minister Dustin Duncan also noted the $61.4-million wildfire management budget is a variable estimate and often unpredictable because the total amount of dollars spent is determined by the amount of fire activity in a given year.

Kaeding said stakeholders — such as the Red Cross and emergency responders — respected the need for a “single point of contact to work through,” which the SPSA is expected to be, as he said there will be “better co-ordination between those two agencies and putting them under the same roof makes the most sense.”

According to the province, there are no staffing reductions as a result of the change and senior leadership of the new Crown corporation is still being determined.