Sask. community, gun range meet over gunfire

Residents in a community east of Regina are firing back after the noise from the Regina Wildlife Federation’s gun range has affected their neighbourhood.

In a Facebook post, Drew Erickson said the gun range has been used by the RCMP and noise from the gunfire can be heard for eight hours a day, five days a week.

Erickson posted a video of his yard with gunfire heard in the background.

In the post, he said his family has been woken up from the gunfire and wants it to be stopped so it doesn’t have a negative effect on the community.

The gun range was founded there in 1963. Gill White, a Regina Wildlife Federation (RWF) board member, said people looking to buy or build homes in the area are made aware of the gun range.

“Right in their sales agreement it states the Regina Wildlife Federation is operating a gun rnage in close proximity and that our activities won’t constitute a nuisance. They signed off on that.”

White said the complaints aren’t new – that they began to roll in after the RCMP began to use the gun range in 2015, after Ottawa mandated that all RCMP officers were to be widely trained with carbine rifles.

The only problem was the training academy at Depot in Regina needed repairs. White said RCMP approached the RWF and began using its gun range, mostly in summer months but also sometimes in early spring and fall.

They’re also not the first police organization to use it. White said the Regina Police Service completed the police combat range located on the property in 1964.

“What is new is that Depot Division, who’s definitely a lot more active group than most other police organizations, had a requirement,” White explained.

“We met as a board, decided you know what, this sounds to us like a great public service not only for the RCMP, but for Saskatchewan, for western Canada, and basically all of Canada, to have better trained police officers, so we agreed.”

White said the RWF reduced the RCMP’s hours to help mitigate the complaints, restricting the hours to Monday to Friday, from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

White also said the community was invited to monthly meetings, but no one showed up.

A mediation meeting is being held Wednesday afternoon with people from the RM of Edenwold, Regina Wildlife Federation, RCMP and residents from Stone Pointe Estates to reach an agreement that pleases everyone.

“We’re going to see if there’s any more we can do besides reducing the hours to what they are now,” White said.