The conference was raised by City Manager Randy Patrick at Monday’s council meeting after the city received an invitation to attend the event in Toronto from Feb. 27 to March 3.

The conference has been arranged to explore Aboriginal Community Safety Planning Initiatives, a program sponsored by the federal government.

Some of the goals of the initiative include creating a healthy and safe community by working with community stakeholders to enhance safety and by creating and maintaining a safe community plan.

“It’s basically to understand the core concepts of the First Nations Mental Wellness Continuum and how to apply those concepts to community safety planning. That’s something we’ll be doing over the next couple of months and to learn about the social determinants to health, mental wellness and addictions,” Patrick said.

Council gave its approval for Mayor David Gillan and Patrick to attend the event.

It was noted airfare and hotel accommodations will be covered by the conference hosts.

The cost to the city will be for mileage and parking expenses to and from the airport only.

Patrick said he is not aware if any other groups from the region will be attending but knows that 10 other communities from Canada have been invited.

“They asked us to come,” he said. “We’re looking at some projects that are pretty important on crime reduction, and this is kind of a starting point for that, and for a community safety plan, looking ahead.”

Coun. Kelli Hawtin believes the event will be a good opportunity for the city to engage in.

“The more we can learn and explore options to learn to be more safe and well in the community the better we will be,” she said.

Gillan is also optimistic about taking part in the event.

“I think the whole idea is we’re trying to meet our peers and understand the best practices to see what we can bring back,” he said. “We will meet officials from Public Safety Canada and talk about what’s happening nationally, in Saskatchewan, and possibly here in our city.”

Gillan said the event will be an opportunity to gather information, so he is looking forward to participating.

“We’re going there to learn from other communities that are also invited to come and share stories, and what’s working [there],” he said. “Hopefully, we can bring back some great ideas here.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

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