Across the country an unprecedented number of celebrations will be held to mark Canada’s 150th birthday.
Millions of Canadians from coast to coast will gather for festivities and as the countdown to the monumental milestone ticks down, while police resources ramp up in order to keep everyone safe.
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Planning and a heightened security detail for this year’s Diefenbaker Park celebrations started a year ago between the Saskatoon Police Service (SPS) and its partners.
“We’re going to have a mix bag of resources there,” SPS Supt. Mitch Yuzdepski said.
“We’re going to have a very noticeable presence directing traffic, helping with ingress and egress to the event.”
“We’re going to have our public safety unit members there who specialize in crowd control. We’re going to have our patrol officers there and members of our bike unit there.”
As many as 50,000 party goers are expected to converge on Diefenbaker Park this Saturday, which is why organizers confirmed with Global News that they’re spending five times as much as in previous years to beef-up security.
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As with any large gathering, police agencies and authorities will have terrorism in the back of their minds, even though our country’s threat level has remained unchanged from medium since 2014.
“Nothing has changed in terms of the threat level for this country but we’re always aware of the changing dynamics that are occurring across the globe,” Yuzdepski said.
After the Manchester arena attack in late May that left 22 dead, Ottawa promised greater security precautions during Canada 150 celebrations but specifics were kept confidential.
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Saskatchewan RCMP also provided Global News with this statement regarding the special steps it would be taking to keep the public safe and secure.
“The safety and security of the people of Saskatchewan continues to be the main priority for the Saskatchewan RCMP. We are not aware of any specific threats around Canada Day celebrations. We continue to be vigilant and we are working closely with our partners and event organizers to ensure that the celebrations are held in a safe manner. We are in a constant state of preparedness and are able to deal quickly with whatever situation arises.
In order to ensure the integrity of our security plans and operations, we are unable to discuss details or address specific locations.
We encourage the public to remain vigilant and to report suspicious activities by contacting their local police service or RCMP detachment or the National Security Information Network at 1-800-420-5805.”
Earlier this month, the Premier Brad Wall confirmed that in recent years there has been one active investigation in Saskatchewan into someone who was radicalized.
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