Mayoral candidate Don Atchison is making his stance on street checks very clear: he supports them.

"Street checks and carding I think are two different scenarios," said Atchison during a Tuesday afternoon press conference. "Carding is racial profiling. I don't believe that's where our police service is going by any stretch of the imagination."

In a release, Atchison also pointed to repairing relations between police and First Nations people in Saskatoon.

He said that when he first became mayor in 2003 there was a dangerous divide between police and First Nations people.

"Members were demoralized and embarrassed to say they were officers," said Atchison. "Today morale on the service is extremely high."

The issue of street checks and carding was raised at a sold-out mayoral debate held at the Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon last week.

During that debate, Atchison spoke strongly in favour of street checks, saying it was an integral part of policing. He argued it could also help improve safety for young people on the street by helping them find a safe place to sleep.

"When I see an officer on the street I feel a lot more safe and secure it doesn't matter what time of day it is," Atchison said at the time. "I think if you're a crook that may not be the same."

Kelley Moore, who has been critical of carding in the past, said she had a "tough conversation" with Saskatoon Police chief Clive Weighill.

"I recognize that we have to have street checks, but we can't be profiling people," she said.

Charlie Clark said he was opposed to random carding.

"In my view there should be no arbitrary police stops for information," said Clark.

"The only time police should be stopping people and gathering information is when there is a legitimate investigative purpose, and now we have to define that."

During the afternoon press conference Tuesday, Atchison also said he would support having more officers in the Saskatoon Police Service.

"The police chief last year asked for more officers. I think we need to embrace that. If we don't we're going to be back to where we were when I became mayor back in 2003. Where there was a huge shortage of officers."