When is that trespass law going to be proclaimed? When there is an app for that

By Brian Zinchuk
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

REGINA – Saskatchewan passed a new trespassing law several years ago, of particular interest to rural residents, but has not yet proclaimed it. One of the rural municipality counsellors taking part in the provincial cabinet “bear pit” session during the virtual Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities convention on March 10 asked what was going on with that.

It turns out, the delay is linked to an app which can be used to ensure you are inbounds with the legislation.

Justice Minister Gord Wyant responded, “You’re correct, we’ve passed the legislation, we’re waiting to proclaim it.

“There’s been a significant amount of collaboration that’s been done with respect to ensuring that we have some public education around the issue to make sure that we have a good communication strategy and there’s been some work being done across ministries with respect to the preparation of an application, so that so that we can have the proper implementation of the legislation. That work is proceeding, and I understand that it’s proceeding quite quickly now, so we’re still very hopeful, but we need to make sure that we have the right vehicle in place to ensure that people can have access to the information that they need so that they’re not offending the legislation.

Wyant continued, “The last thing that we would want to do is proclaim the legislation without having the proper tools in place, and while there’s been a lot of work that’s been done, as I say, we’re fairly close, at least that’s my understanding. So we’re hopeful. We know how important it is to people in rural Saskatchewan around this piece of legislation, that’s why we brought it forward. We also want to make sure that when we proclaim it, that the appropriate tools are in place to make sure that it’s effective and efficient. Otherwise, I think we fail. So, you can look forward to some more information on this in the near future, and we’ll continue to work on it as diligently as we can.

Premier Scott Moe added the is ready to be proclaimed. “We will be proclaiming it at some point in time, we do want to ensure there’s the sufficient amount of support infrastructure around this piece of legislation when we do proclaim it. As well, we want to ensure that there’s no unintended consequences that should arise as well and so there’s that last look happening, in that last piece of consultation in which SARM is involved, right now, but we will be moving forward when we can, you know, ensure that those those two pieces are checked.”