Herb Sutton presented his monthly community safety report last Monday night to city council, and there was no shortage of items he had to deal with on his watch over the past month.
Among them was the HUB table and the much-anticipated “reboot” of the organization.
He reported to council a meeting took place the previous Thursday of both the HUB table and HUB steering committee; some facilitators from Regina were also included.
The indication from Sutton was that he was “very pleased about the candid conversations” about what was working and what wasn’t. Some clarifications were made of issues that were “significant trouble spots” the HUB table was encountering.
The most significant news, according to Sutton, is that they have all agreed to come back and meet again for another session for a half day.
No date has been set, but the indication was that it would look at action plans going forward. Facilitators from Regina would be back again for that meeting.
For now, the HUB has continued without a permanent chair, with the departure of Tonya Browarny from the role last month. The chair role has been filled on a rotating basis since then, but Sutton noted no permanent chair has stepped forward yet.
As for the work of the HUB table, it continues to meet every Tuesday and Thursday and situations continue to be dealt with.
The other major news from Sutton’s latest report stems from the work of the SAGE (Safety Acceptance Guidance Empowerment) committee.
Previously there had been plans for Federal Provincial Territorial (FTP) Collaborative Approach meeting for May 2-3. However, it looks like it will be postponed indefinitely.
The reasons stem out of concerns the meeting might get in the way of one of the group’s primary objectives: building relationships with Indigenous people on public safety initiatives.
Sutton explained the SAGE group has made Indigenous participation a priority. One thing the group had come to understand in talking to Indigenous leaders was the need to get away from the “paternalistic and proscriptive” approaches of the past, which have been ineffective.
The group also came to understand the May workshop that they were planning “had really fallen into that category of being paternalistic and proscriptive,” said Sutton.
The recommendation from the SAGE committee was to postpone the planned FPT Collaborative Approach meeting, Sutton said. Instead, Sutton indicated they plan to focus their energies instead on government-to-government relations and on creating the coalition – the model bring together federal, provincial, municipal and First Nations governments on community safety initiatives. In connection to those efforts, a coalition design workshop was held on Feb 27-28.
At council last Monday, Mayor Ryan Bater indicated he was supportive of those ongoing coalition-building efforts.
“It’s really exciting what we could accomplish for this area if we can align all of the governments in a way where we can start to get results for the people who live and work here,” said Bater.
