RCMP looking to make presence known during long weekend

With some time off, and people looking to decompress over the long weekend, there may need to be some people keeping an eye on everyone to make sure they're following the laws.

That's where the RCMP come in - between all of the people traveling on highways to their weekend destination, and all of the people headed to provincial parks without their own police force, they're sure to have a busy weekend.

In order to get ahead of anyone looking to cause trouble, they're looking to first make sure that their presence is known in those communities.

Cpl. Craig Park of the Estevan RCMP says that they're making sure to get more people out in the community to that end.

"Generally before the long weekend we're going to be getting a game plan, we'll expect to see a lot of people traveling and moving around the province given that it's the big kickoff to the camping weekend here. We generally like to get out and show a big presence during these weekends, you can expect to see a large presence of police on the roads over the long weekend."

Those measures will include stopping vehicles, high visibility check stops, checking for registered vehicles, and making sure that people are following the long weekend.

One thing they'll especially be looking for is alcohol, whether that be open containers in a vehicle or on campsites.

That's because many campgrounds will be observing the alcohol ban, and RCMP will be helping to enforce that.

"Province-wide, the provincial parks have a ban on alcohol and its consumption in the parks. Like any weekend, we try and get out to curb some of that activity where there are parks that have bans on that activity we'll be checking for those kinds of things," said Park, "We'll also be sure to check that people are abiding by the rules of the campgrounds and the rules of the road there."

These are yearly precautions for the RCMP, but the last couple of years have been a bit slower thanks to so many staying home due to COVID.

Park says he expects that to change this year.

"The last couple of years with the COVID restrictions and everything else, we finally got a summer here where people can go out and start enjoying and socializing again. We do expect that there may be a bigger presence, of course, a lot of the time weather has a big part to do with that and I guess time will tell."

Park says he wishes everyone a safe and fun long weekend and summer.