The first class of peacekeepers in Pelican Narrows is ready to hit the streets.
Eight students graduated from the first ever class of the Peacekeeper Training Program, a program initiated last summer by Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation (PBCN)
As part of the program, students are taught how to work as peacekeeping officers in the community, assisting the RCMP with shutting down criminal activity.
Harold Linklater, PBCN vice chief, said increasing crime in Pelican Narrows inspired the program.
“Residents, they were concerned about gang activity that’s been going on. Despite the RCMP presence, it’s been pretty hectic. We wanted to do something about it.”
When Linklater and other residents heard of a peacekeeping program on Onion Lake Cree Nation in western Saskatchewan, they immediately wanted to start a similar plan in Pelican Narrows.
“We found out about how it worked, how it got started and what we needed to do. We had our discussions and then saw what we could do. That’s how it started,” he said.
Students studied four different modules as part of the program, including medical training, first response and security fundamentals. The graduating peacekeepers will help defuse potentially violent situations, provide first aid and community outreach and function as bylaw officers.
The money used to finance the peacekeepers’ training came through the National Child Benefit Reinvestment program.
Now that the peacekeepers are out in the community, Linklater said the plan is to slowly integrate them into daily life in Pelican Narrows.
“We’d try to get them patrolling around at night and establish a presence in the community. We probably will expand a little bit further as we get into the program,” he said.
“They’ll be enforcing some of our bylaws to some extent. We may even have check stops, for example, for suspicious activity and have authority to do something like that.”
Linklater said discussions with Pelican Narrows RCMP have been fruitful and that both sides involved are looking forward to seeing more security presence on the street. The hope is that peacekeepers in the community can react quickly to certain situations, especially when RCMP members are responding to out of town calls.
“We have high hopes for it, we have high expectations. So do the people here in the community. Hopefully it will work out. The RCMP… they can only do so much,” said Linklater.
“If we have this program in place, that’s where they kick in. They’d be first responders for any kind of accidents, like fights or any sort of problem in the community.”
While the class is still considered a pilot project, Linklater is hopeful that the program can continue and train more Pelican Narrows residents in the future.
“I believe it will work very well. In our initial discussions with the RCMP, they indicated they were looking forward to it and they were thinking very highly and positively about this project.”
