The head of the RCMP’s North District in Saskatchewan says Mounties do not have the right to force anyone to comply with a mandatory evacuation order.

The issue came up earlier this month in La Ronge when RCMP officers were going door-to-door to make sure people were leaving.

Supt. Grant St. Germaine acknowledges that, early on, some Mounties believed they had the authority to forcibly remove people who wanted to stay.

“I think there was some confusion even initially at the detachment level there,” he says. “So I know some calls came back from La Ronge to us saying: ‘OK, we have an individual who doesn’t want to leave. If they don’t leave, we’re going to have to arrest the person and force them to leave.’ And we said: ‘Hang tough. You have no authority to do that.’.”

La Ronge S. Sgt. Richard Price says a couple of households signed a waiver in exchange for being allowed to stay.

“That if the fire did pose a very imminent threat to them that we may not be in a position to help them,” he says. “And by signing that waiver they were acknowledging that they had been asked to leave but were choosing not to.”

However, St. Germaine says it is a different matter if the health of children is at stake, as the RCMP can help Social Services remove kids from an unsafe environment.

St. Germaine also says the Mounties definitely have the right to prevent people from returning to an evacuation area.