Saskatoon police chief Clive Weighill talks marijuana, social media and mayors in CBC exit interview
Wraps 42-year policing career and 11 years as chief on Oct. 6
Saskatoon police chief Clive Weighill says he's not sure whether he's going to try marijuana should it become legal next year – but he's thinking about it.
"I don't know .... I guess I'll wait and see next July."
Asked if he's curious, he said "Yeah, yeah. We'll see. We'll see what happens next July."
Weighill steps down as Saskatoon's police chief on Oct. 6. He's spent 11 years as the city's top cop, and 42 years total in law enforcement.
In a recent sit-down interview with CBC News, he reflected on a variety of issues.
Daleen Bosse
Daleen Bosse, a young mother, went missing in Saskatoon on May 18, 2004. Her car turned up a month later. But it took almost a year for police to upgrade it from a missing person case to a criminal investigation.
Weighill says it's a case that he wishes the police service had handled differently, that it had sent a signal to the Bosse family that it was taking the case seriously.
"That file got off a little bit on the wrong foot because there had been some reported sightings of Daleen and that's what slowed the investigation down," he said.
Social media and the new police chief
Weighill said that the continuing evolution of social media is going to pose challenges for his successor. The immediacy of platforms like Twitter and Facebook mean that information and rumours are disseminated almost immediately.
"It doesn't seem to matter now who you are, or where you are," he said.
"Social media can certainly make a big difference on your public persona. It can be one incident that gets blown up, or many incidents that people comment on, whether they know the facts or not."
He said it can also have a significant impact on what happens when someone dies.
"We've had accidents here in the city where there's been fatalities. Before we even have a chance to notify the family officially, through social media the family finds out about it. And that's not the way to find out."
Legalization of marijuana
The federal government says it plans to legalize marijuana by July 2018. The Saskatoon police and other police departments are lobbying the government to push back that date.
Weighill said there is a gap between science and the law that needs to be bridged.
"Because we don't have a test that will quantify how much THC is actually in a person's bloodstream, we have to rely back on like it was in the old days on symptoms," he said.
"So the officers now have to testify the eyes are glassy, the person was driving erratically."
On working with mayors
Weighill worked under two mayors during his tenure as chief.
He said that he had a solid working relationship with both, and with city manager Murray Totland. The police service saw the construction of its new headquarters and more officers hired under the two civic leaders.
How are the two mayors different?
"Don, I think is more of a straight guy, trying to get to it, and Charlie is more of a consensus builder, takes a bit more time to build a consensus," he said.
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