Saskatchewan’s highest court has rejected an appeal from two former Saskatoon police officers who missed the deadline to challenge their terminations from the service. Former constables Dylan Kemp and Jason Garland were terminated in September 2025, following an alcohol-fueled off-duty party that scandalized the Saskatoon Police Service, triggering an internal investigation, multiple terminations, and criminal charges against Kemp for assaulting a female special constable while in a state of intoxication. The two men sought to appeal the decision, filing paperwork eight days later through their employment lawyer, Steve Seiferling. Or so they thought. It turns out Seiferling sent the appeals to the wrong place. By the time it came to light, they had missed the 30-day deadline to challenge their firing. They turned to the Court of King’s Bench, calling for a judge to order the commission or the minister of policing to establish a new hearing. The judge dismissed them, ruling the legislation governing the oversight body, the Saskatchewan Police Commission, was clear that there is no authority or duty to designate a hearing officer after the time to appeal has expired. The two turned to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal for redress. In a unanimous decision last month, the province’s highest court dismissed the case, upholding the King’s Bench ruling. “The decision is correct. The legislated requirements for statutory appeals are mandatory and substantive,” the panel of three senior judges wrote. “Mandatory and substantive conditions … cannot be varied or extended by either an administrative tribunal or a court, absent an express statutory provision allowing it.” In other words, if it’s not expressly written in the rulebook, it’s not allowed. Or at least there’s no obligation to do it, according to the appeal court. “Because the right to an appeal hearing and the resulting duty to designate a hearing officer only exists if a notice of appeal has been validly submitted to the commission within the proscribed appeal period, the minister did not have a legal duty to designate a hearing officer.”
