Saskatoon police issue fewer traffic tickets due to staffing shortages: chief

Ongoing staffing shortages faced by Saskatoon police led to fewer traffic enforcement tickets last year, says Saskatoon’s chief of police.

In 2025, the Saskatoon Police Service (SPS) issued 15,091 traffic tickets, about 2,200 fewer than the five-year average and 86 fewer than the year before.

“We’ve definitely seen the impacts of a decrease in our staffing when it comes to traffic enforcement,” Chief Cameron McBrid told reporters following a Thursday board of police commissioners meeting.

“Our traffic safety members are dedicated to traffic safety work, and so when there’s a reduction in that dedication, we can see a reduction in enforcement and ticket numbers.”

Some of the top offences ticketed last year include speeding and disqualified driving, said Tony Landry, SPS inspector of patrol support, at the police commissioner meeting.

Police issued 3,995 speeding tickets last year — down 36 per cent from the five-year average, but up six per cent from the previous year.

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Driving while disqualified or suspended saw 18 fewer offences in 2025, and was also below the five-year average by around 12 per cent.

McBride notes that distracted driving and not wearing a seatbelt were two common violations ticketed in 2025.

“There’s documented evidence over many, many years that seatbelts save lives and yet we still have a large percentage of the public who don’t wear seatbelts, which is concerning to me,” he said.

Impaired driving numbers were up 29 per cent compared to 2024, something McBride says is due to a “concerted effort” from the force to crack down on those offences.

Investigations into impaired driving offences usually takes up a significant amount of time for traffic enforcement officers, said McBride, often taking them away from other patrolling duties.

“For every member who’s tied up in an investigation like that for many hours, that’s traffic enforcement time that they’re not doing, simply writing other tickets for other violations,” he said.

While officer enforcement was down, offences caught by speed cameras reached an all-time high in 2025, totalling 64,971.

The five-year average for photo speed enforcement offences is 37,878, which combines those captured on Saskatoon’s Circle Drive and in school zones.

Camera placement and monitoring programs are managed by the city and not police, said McBride, adding that police do, however, verify each ticket issued.

“As long as those cameras and programs exist, we’ll be engaged in that work. But we’re not leading the charge,” he said.