Western Standard - Safer streets in Calgary

00:00:00.000 First of all, I want to acknowledge that we are gathered on Treaty 7 land and we respect the histories, the languages and cultures of our First Nations, Métis and Inuit and all First Peoples of Canada, whose presence continues to enrich our vibrant community.

00:00:14.000 I'm pleased to share that we have arrived at a significant milestone in our work to ensure that the people in Calgary are safe in the streets, safe on public transit and safe in their homes.

00:00:29.800 We're announcing today that Alberta's government is providing the Calgary Police Service with

00:00:34.760 $4.16 million this year to help hire and train new officers that will be assigned to uniform

00:00:41.800 patrol duties in the city center where they are most needed. We made this commitment in April,

00:00:48.440 and today I'm very proud to say that we are delivering on this commitment with this funding.

00:00:52.760 But as I said a moment ago, this is a milestone. Not the end, there is more work to be done.

00:00:59.160 It will now be up to our partners at the Calgary Police Service to recruit, train, deploy these

00:01:04.120 50 new officers. How and when that will happen are operational matters that the Calgary Police

00:01:09.800 Service will carry out independently from government and of course we'll have Chief

00:01:13.480 Neufeld here to speak about when the new officers will be trained, equipped and ready to be deployed.

00:01:19.160 I will note that this funding will help cover the costs of the officer's salaries and benefits as

00:01:25.160 as well as the vital equipment needs like vehicles,

00:01:29.220 uniforms, radios, body-worn cameras, et cetera,

00:01:32.580 essential tools that are gonna help empower these officers

00:01:35.200 to uphold law and order.

00:01:37.260 As I've said many times, officer presence matters

00:01:41.540 and it will continue to matter.

00:01:42.940 Alberta's government will do whatever it takes

00:01:44.640 to keep people safe.

00:01:46.280 And let me be crystal clear,

00:01:48.500 drug dealers who prey upon vulnerable residents

00:01:51.280 and cause chaos on the streets are not welcome

00:01:55.100 this province. We know that Calgary is a great place to live, to work, to raise a family,

00:02:02.060 but there's no denying that the increase of crime and social disorder that began during the pandemic

00:02:08.140 has not gone away. Police could once say with a high degree of confidence that random and unprovoked

00:02:14.220 attacks were rare. Now it appears they occur almost every other day. This is very concerning

00:02:21.020 and will not be tolerated. We've seen stranger-on-stranger violence, which is a huge concern

00:02:29.180 for me. During my time as a police officer on the streets, you would often hear, quote,

00:02:34.460 the victim was known to the offender, unquote, but we are seeing more violent attacks on citizens

00:02:40.940 just going about their daily lives. Not only does this have me concerned, but Albertans concerned

00:02:46.940 as well and we cannot allow this to continue the rising crime rates have emphasized the need to

00:02:53.740 address underlying issues such as addiction homelessness and mental health we know that

00:02:59.900 enforcement is only part of a strategy to address these complex and often related issues as i and

00:03:07.100 others have said before we cannot arrest our way out of this problem and arrest our way out to

00:03:13.740 community safety. The 50 new officers here in Calgary will provide a necessary and reassuring

00:03:20.220 presence on the streets. However, our work is not done. Alberta's government will continue to do

00:03:25.900 what it can to ensure that law enforcement agencies have the vital tools to keep our streets

00:03:30.860 safe, combat serious and organized crime, and adapt to emerging threats. We will also keep

00:03:37.180 the pressure on the federal government to deliver meaningful bail reform that will

00:03:41.660 hold violent repeat offenders accountable and keep them in custody where they cannot continue

00:03:47.260 to victimize law-abiding citizens. For today, however, I'm pleased that we've reached an

00:03:51.980 agreement to hire and train these 50 new officers for Calgary. It will be a great day when they hit

00:03:57.980 the streets and can start making a real difference in the lives of Calgarians. While I have the

00:04:03.100 opportunity, I'd also like to recognize the work that the members of the Calgary Police Service do

00:04:07.580 each and every day to serve their community and thank you for for keeping people safe and protected

00:04:14.540 and you have my pledge that alberta's government will continue its efforts to ensure

00:04:20.060 that you have the support and resources to carry out your important work you are a vital partner

00:04:25.980 in making alberta a better place to live work and of course raise a family i'd now like to

00:04:31.180 turn things over to chief neufeld to say a few remarks thank you very much

00:04:44.940 thank you to minister ellison all of you for coming here today we wouldn't be here today

00:04:48.620 if it weren't for the provincial government the municipal governments and police agencies across

00:04:53.100 this province who've come together to tackle complex problems that are fueling perceptions

00:04:57.900 that public spaces are less safe in communities around our province it was eight months ago here

00:05:03.420 in calgary where we stood before our public and some of you to discuss these issues and

00:05:08.780 we committed to find ways to ensure that calgarians felt safe in public spaces which includes our

00:05:14.060 transit system we embarked on targeted operations both covertly and overtly deploying as many

00:05:20.140 resources as we could to address these concerns and to support our transit and bylaw partners

00:05:25.420 ensuring that our parks and our pathways transit stations and all public spaces were safer for

00:05:31.580 calgarians since january officers working in these areas have laid more than 3 300 criminal charges

00:05:38.620 they've affected 5 600 warrants and issued more than 3 600 tickets related to work on and around

00:05:45.180 the transit system and on public spaces in addition many referrals have been made to social

00:05:50.460 services partners for folks who need those services from within the community during this

00:05:55.740 work we realized we have the tools to address violent offenders but we lack the resources and

00:06:00.780 the ability to sustain those efforts to address those who are causing people to feel unsafe

00:06:05.740 and those perhaps who don't cross into a serious criminal threshold and what i mean by that is

00:06:12.300 individuals who who continue to struggle with addictions and mental health and some of their

00:06:18.540 offending wouldn't be very serious on its own in november's commission meeting we ended up

00:06:24.300 detailing a history of one of these individuals we talked about a woman in her 50s who's often 0.97

00:06:28.780 found along transit and in our downtown public areas displaying disturbing behavior so yelling

00:06:34.940 at times shoplifting causing a disturbance in and around restaurants in liquor stores and at times

00:06:41.260 her behavior has escalated to points where she's punched and threatened calgarians that she's passed

00:06:47.020 along the street this woman it turns out has had hundreds of involvements with police in the past 0.99

00:06:52.460 few years and no doubt has a similar track record with ems partners uh calgary transit uh emergency

00:06:59.980 wards that type of thing uh dozens of matters she had before the courts but like i say those would 0.95

00:07:06.220 have fallen outside of the realm of of anything that would attract a strong judicial sanction

00:07:12.540 and like i say those would be the types of things where you know you wouldn't necessarily expect

00:07:17.020 uh a strong sanction for any one thing and there was a recognition that this was an individual who

00:07:21.740 struggled with mental health and addictions issues and who was struggling so we were seeing going to

00:07:26.060 go into court and get no time so there was a bit of a revolving door uh in the system but yet this

00:07:32.140 was also somebody who refused any offers of services it was clear that how we've engaged

00:07:40.300 her and so many other people in her circumstances to date hasn't worked for her it hasn't worked

00:07:45.820 for us and it hasn't worked for the broader community that she's impacting over the last

00:07:50.700 number of months i've been really encouraged in doing this work we've learned a lot we've done

00:07:54.860 a lot and one of the things that we've done is we've been able to improve our data collection

00:07:58.860 and visualization on what i'll call high users of service or high systems users

00:08:04.220 we're now able to see past the dozens of individual interactions that we talk about

00:08:08.540 and get a larger and clearer picture around the impact these folks are having around the challenges

00:08:13.580 they're facing and the opportunities that perhaps some of those things present that allows us to

00:08:17.820 actually have better insight in looking at how we could better respond to the needs of those

00:08:22.380 types of individuals across our city so the addition of these new officers is going to help

00:08:27.260 us to create several new teams in the city whose primary role will be to focus on individuals

00:08:32.460 involved in committing crimes obviously but also on those high systems users across our city

00:08:38.860 in working with our partners in the judicial and social support areas

00:08:42.220 we're going to aim to provide a more individualized case management approach

00:08:46.460 to affect real change in the lives of these individuals and to lessen the impact that

00:08:50.540 they're having on the communities in calgary the work will be done in addition to the intelligence

00:08:56.060 led deployments which focuses on areas around our city where there's increased social disorder

00:09:00.620 and encampments that we know continue to pop up around the city so again with the data we have

00:09:05.660 we can see when we put pressure on the system crime and disorder will move around and so we

00:09:10.300 need to be nimble enough to be able to react and move with that today's announcement obviously is

00:09:14.540 a welcome one calgary is by no means alone on this journey to improve public safety in our

00:09:19.980 or improve safety in our public spaces so we're grateful then to know that we have the full

00:09:24.540 support of the provincial government as well as city council as we continue to move in this new

00:09:29.660 direction happy to take any questions uh you may have in relation to our specific deployment

00:09:34.860 uh here in calgary so this brings us to the uh question the answer portion of our announcement

00:09:39.580 we do have some reporters here on the floor and we do have some on the phone uh if you could just

00:09:43.820 take to the mic to uh to ask your questions uh we'll start off here on the floor go ahead

00:09:48.300 hi there minister jordan from ctv news uh i think i heard you say 4.16 million that's

00:09:53.900 about half of what edmonton got why the difference in the funding from yesterday and

00:10:00.620 what will the ongoing funding be for calgary after that 4.1 million is uh runs out uh so just as i

00:10:07.660 announced, I think I remember before or during the election, it was predictable, sustainable

00:10:13.240 funding. So this is going to be ongoing. So this is a commitment that we made and we're going to

00:10:18.820 continue to follow through with it. The question that you had originally was a question that I had

00:10:22.500 as well. And certainly the answer is quite simply that the difference is due to the alignment

00:10:27.180 between CPSR's recruiting cycle and the fiscal year, which ends March 31st, 2024. But I know

00:10:32.920 I've discussed this with the chief as well, and he probably could elaborate a little further on that.

00:10:36.980 did you have a follow-up question hang on i do but if i could just get the chief on that would

00:10:41.780 be great okay yeah just to add some color to that so basically what's going to happen here

00:10:46.100 in calgary is we're going to be adding some new teams as i said that's going to do the type of

00:10:49.700 work that i'm talking about so what we've done is prioritize the rollout obviously as we talked

00:10:54.340 about when it comes to putting new net new police officers out onto the street uh it takes time to

00:10:59.620 do that through the training cycle and this type of thing so for us in calgary here we're going to

00:11:04.020 we've prioritized districts one so downtown district five and district six to be the first

00:11:08.900 three areas so again the province's fiscal year runs till the end of april so we'll be deploying

00:11:14.900 uh posting the positions and deploying the resources into one five and six in the first

00:11:19.700 quarter so we'll need the money in the first quarter the second part we won't i guess to

00:11:23.940 answer your question we won't receive any less money than edmonton to cover the 50 net new

00:11:28.900 officers it'll just be a question of when the fiscal year ends and when the money comes

00:11:33.140 so for us then the second half of the deployment the second uh 25 officers will be deployed in

00:11:38.660 quarter two or at least at that at latest early quarter three so it's just a matter of when we

00:11:44.180 can use the money and when the fiscal year ends is that clear i think so and just to clarify as

00:11:49.060 well that ongoing funding from the province will it be 100 of what is needed for those 50 officers

00:11:54.980 moving forward and uh second question as well um that's the commitment we made uh second question

00:12:00.580 as well for for either of you we saw the the sheriff pilot program and we saw the outcome

00:12:05.220 of that and people downtown reported that they didn't the perception of safety was not higher

00:12:10.740 and it displaced some of the crime that was happening in the downtown area uh how are you

00:12:17.060 confident that 50 more officers will make a difference this time well i had just i'll let

00:12:22.580 the chief speak to that but let me just let me just add add this because there's a similar

00:12:26.420 question that i i had yesterday um as i said officer presence matters um if if you are an

00:12:35.220 offender you are less likely to commit a crime knowing that you see a uniform presence officer

00:12:42.660 in and around where you are so um and and not only that but it does give citizens when you see them

00:12:50.020 a sense of safety they they feel safer and i think that is something that we have to take into

00:12:56.260 context it's tough to to measure that i i understand that but just understand that the

00:13:02.100 feedback that we have gotten whether it be calgary edmonton is that is that people don't feel safe

00:13:08.900 and it's not to suggest that our current whether it be calgary edmonton law enforcement officers

00:13:12.660 are not doing what they can absolutely they are i know that i was one of them right they bend over

00:13:17.860 backwards each and every day however having more officers more presence more ability to respond to

00:13:23.860 calls more of an ability to tackle organized crime more of an ability to deal with people who are

00:13:29.940 are vulnerable and get them the help that they need which is a conduit in a very very important

00:13:34.820 part of this very complex problem uh only adds uh and benefits what we're trying to do to help

00:13:41.620 people in calgary i don't know if you want to add any context to that i guess i would just say that

00:13:47.620 when we cherry pick out individual initiatives and then say and we evaluate them on their own

00:13:53.300 it's always hard to do because at the end of the day i think i think the fundamental question for

00:13:56.580 people is is do you feel safer the question people are asking is am i safe in my community but this

00:14:02.020 is actually just one part of what we're doing again we came out early this year to say we were

00:14:06.820 going to focus on public spaces you'll know that the city of calgary approved the transit strategy

00:14:13.300 so this uh edition of officers is actually aligned with the transit strategy as well

00:14:17.940 this will be our contribution to the transit strategy as well you know that we scaled up our

00:14:22.660 pact and our mobile response teams uh so that so that is going on this will actually assist in that

00:14:28.980 i think probably one of the biggest things for us in relation to this is capacity

00:14:33.140 because what we were finding is we were getting pulled this year as you all know there's lots of

00:14:36.980 challenges coming at the police service and at the community so our officers were getting pulled in

00:14:41.140 different directions whether it be protests whether it be world petroleum congress that type

00:14:44.740 of thing and lots of times it was hard to keep a sustained focus on the challenges that we face

00:14:49.860 around disorder in public spaces so this adds a significant amount of capacity to be able to do

00:14:54.340 that one of the one of the positions in each of the districts will be around coordination

00:14:59.460 for high systems users so this will be an opportunity when you talk about you know as

00:15:03.220 an example this lady that i'm talking about here in individual interactions with her you might come 1.00

00:15:09.300 across you know where she's yelling in a store or whatever so an officer might come be very busy

00:15:13.860 escort her out of the store and and that might be it right uh she may end up getting a ticket 1.00

00:15:18.580 somewhere along the way or whatever and that that might be it by a different officer the one thing

00:15:22.660 that we saw is that she rode the transit system a lot like where we were dealing with her um through 0.57

00:15:27.220 the through the data and heat maps that we developed around one individual that we had this

00:15:31.700 many interactions with uh showed us that she was using trans she was all over the city 0.63

00:15:35.620 So what this allows us to do is rather than at a time where perhaps she's in crisis or things are escalated, we know that she's our quote unquote, one of our high systems users. So with our community partners, be able to go proactively to try to actually identify issues. This is still based on consent, right? She still has to consent to participating or not in this program.

00:15:58.620 But at the end of the day, going out at times when things aren't escalated or elevated, I think our opportunities to be able to affect change are probably better than they were before.

00:16:07.180 And this also dovetails into, you know, the province has done a really good job around, I'm thinking of the virtual opioid dependency program and the investments into city cells.

00:16:16.900 So when we take people into custody now and they go into arrest processing, there are now social workers in there that actually screen people,

00:16:25.040 medics that screen people for opioid addictions and then social workers have actually tried to

00:16:29.440 identify vulnerabilities so more and more in the province every door is a door for those who are

00:16:35.100 actually struggling with addictions and mental health to have an opportunity to get out of the

00:16:38.860 system which if we were to move somebody out of the system who we've had literally hundreds of

00:16:43.140 interactions in the last couple of years and as I say that's just the police interactions not

00:16:47.840 the rest of the system right so we think about the pressures on health care and stuff like that

00:16:51.560 very very significant opportunity um to be able to have impact by adding capacity here so it's

00:16:57.380 not just one piece of anything it's actually as the province builds out recovery oriented systems

00:17:01.760 of care recovery communities and the resources are all in that i think all of this comes together

00:17:06.440 uh to head in a good direction uh adam mcvicker with global news um my first question for you

00:17:13.200 chief operationally these officers i guess the first 25 would be after april if we're talking

00:17:18.940 q1 um what's being perhaps done in the interim in one five and six you know just to make sure

00:17:25.980 there's eyes on those areas before these extra officers come in and kind of add to that capacity

00:17:31.100 yeah thanks adam so it would actually just to clarify we'd be looking in quarter one uh filling

00:17:35.580 the first 25 early in quarter one so we're thinking january so we have uh for next year we've added

00:17:40.700 two recruit classes so our recruit classes are 24 so that's 48 so we're scaling up our recruiting

00:17:46.700 in the next year to be able to um to bring the officers on board but we're going to fill some

00:17:52.620 of the positions sooner because we believe that coordination piece is super important

00:17:56.780 but really as you know in one district right now as an example downtown we already have the

00:18:01.020 presence of beats and bikes and that sort of thing there's there's additional resources that

00:18:04.700 that augment uh because of the the significant issues and the size and and i think proximity of

00:18:10.540 social agencies and some of the challenges that exist uh in one district so there are more

00:18:14.700 resources there now but again i think the officers are doing an excellent job but one of the

00:18:18.700 challenges has been is being able to be there all the time because oftentimes you know like the

00:18:23.020 mountain bike teams were designed to be able to deal with some of the issues we face around

00:18:27.740 disorder in the downtown they're often pulled to other duties so again these are teams that would

00:18:33.100 actually be assigned on an ongoing basis to these types of issues focusing on obviously criminality

00:18:40.940 but also proactively on high systems users.

00:18:43.580 And so I think that'll be a good piece of work.

00:18:46.220 My next question for the minister,

00:18:48.240 I guess I'm just trying to wrap my head around kind of the numbers here.

00:18:51.300 Four point, how is this, where is this money coming from

00:18:55.840 within the provincial coffers?

00:18:57.280 And is it that $4.1 million every year?

00:19:00.940 When we talk about that sustainable permanent funding,

00:19:03.000 I know there are some people who are curious

00:19:04.460 because if anything changes,

00:19:07.200 Chief Neufeld will have to be at City Hall during budget talks

00:19:10.840 and asking city council to to fund that gap if anything does change with this funding so i'm

00:19:15.240 curious how permanent and where that funding is coming from permanent is permanent adam i i don't

00:19:21.720 know what else to say i mean uh we made that commitment it's a commitment that we stand by um

00:19:26.520 under under this government uh we're going to continue to support our law enforcement communities

00:19:31.000 and make sure that um they have the the predictable and sustainable funding especially as it pertains

00:19:36.920 to this this initiative that was a commitment that we made during the election and that's a

00:19:40.120 commitment that we continue to make so the money currently uh is something that uh i believe it

00:19:45.560 comes out of this year's budget budget and then you know we go to treasury board we'll do the

00:19:51.800 process right but uh this is uh this is one of those things that is um you know permanent certainly

00:19:58.200 as long as this government's here thanks hcd news uh just to reconfirm something from minister alice

00:20:06.360 uh premier daniel smith announced 100 officers that will be deployed in calgary and edmonton so

00:20:12.280 these 50 officers are part of that announcement yes yeah so there's 50 in calgary and 50 edmonton

00:20:18.760 yes perfect thank you thank you like just for a second there just build on adam's uh question

00:20:24.840 there for a second adam i think this might be helpful i think one of the things that actually

00:20:28.120 delayed the announcement a little bit there was and i want to give uh the provincial government

00:20:31.720 uh credit where it's due here so they had talked about uh in the um in the run-up to the election

00:20:37.400 about 50 new officers in edmonton and calgary so 100 net new officers um our understanding

00:20:42.760 obviously and the ministers can confirm that's you know sustainable um funding there so that's

00:20:47.800 on the go forward but one of the things that probably slowed things down a little bit is i

00:20:51.480 know both us and edmonton came forward and said you know anytime uh that we add that number of

00:20:56.440 officers those individuals will need supports they're going to generate work so in the background

00:21:01.960 we need to be thinking about the supports that actually make all of that run uh well so people

00:21:06.760 that enter reports and people that do disclosure and this type of thing so we were able to in

00:21:11.240 addition to the 50 officers because the province wanted to make it 100 forward-facing um sworn

00:21:16.760 officers we were able to get to a place where like the the funding the one-time costs for you know

00:21:21.800 vehicles uniforms body cams this type of thing as well as those back of the house supports that

00:21:27.000 every organization has those are all included in the sustainment of this so i just want to

00:21:31.240 want to say that the work up to that took a little bit of extra time but i think that was all for the

00:21:35.880 good in terms of you know calgarians and edmontonians are and this and the sustainability

00:21:39.800 of the funding so sorry about that hi elise voncio with cbc for the minister how flexible is this

00:21:45.800 funding say if as it goes forward operationally they need a little bit more if they have a need

00:21:51.320 for more officers or if that money they might argue would be better deployed in in different

00:21:56.600 areas how willing are you to kind of tweak what it looks like going forward well i mean certainly

00:22:00.920 it's meant for high crime areas um i i would say so it doesn't necessarily mean um you know

00:22:08.360 specifically in downtown however i'm sure if the chief in in his wisdom believes operationally that

00:22:15.160 there's a certain area of concern within the city of calgary i'm sure there would be some flexibility

00:22:20.440 to deploy those to where the community needs it the most right i mean really it's about um again

00:22:27.400 um you know we're seeing in certain areas of calgary that uh and sometimes it's downtown

00:22:32.760 sometimes it's not downtown having that officer presence might matter and again that's an operational

00:22:36.760 decision that the city's city police are going to make but again this is about net new officers

00:22:42.440 to be dealing with uh high priority crime areas within the city of calgary just to clarify more

00:22:48.040 money potentially on the table if well issues expand we'll take that in a case-by-case basis

00:22:52.360 i'll say that and just a follow-up for the chief as you mentioned like the high-risk individual

00:22:56.200 that you talked about as well you noted that she was pretty mobile as well so how do you adjust or

00:23:01.880 how will you react if when you put these officers in those high crime areas the crime moves around

00:23:08.520 yeah it's a great question and so like i say we're prioritizing districts one which is the downtown

00:23:12.840 as well as five and six uh right now because we believe that's where we have the most significant

00:23:17.720 issues today we would the second tranche though the second 25 is going to go into the other

00:23:22.760 districts and so this aligns with um the city's transit safety strategy where the transit peace

00:23:29.080 officers have also gone to a district model so it's in the coordination i think of uh the resources

00:23:34.360 and having the right resources in the right places like uh you know honestly and and this

00:23:39.080 would be something that you might be interested in seeing sometime the data visualization right

00:23:42.920 now that we can look at i can tell you right now what's the most uh priority um lrt station or

00:23:49.240 transit station in the city so so we know what issues are happening where we know what's driving

00:23:53.720 that uh and with the coordination we have with uh our partners at transit there we can get the

00:23:58.360 right resources there in ways that we never could before so there's a bunch of pieces to that system

00:24:02.600 i think that were fractured before um that we're able to actually bring together as part of this

00:24:06.520 transit strategy that i think is going to be um very helpful but i i once again i want to say

00:24:11.560 that when we started out talking about this back when the announcement was made i think the issue

00:24:15.640 at the time was transit so we started thinking about this in a very narrow way where the the

00:24:19.880 grant was was almost going to come out as it was like it was transit and our ask was could we make

00:24:24.600 it broader knowing that it's sustainable funding and knowing that as we put pressure on some areas

00:24:29.240 of the system there will be movement within that system and so the the province has been very good

00:24:34.200 about making sure that the grant is is is is general enough that the officers can be used for

00:24:39.320 very clear they're intended to be forward facing public spaces but obviously we know that with the

00:24:45.960 transit system built out in calgary like we have folks move around quite readily and also as i say

00:24:50.760 when we put pressure in one area we get we get impacts in others and so we have the ability to

00:24:54.920 move around but there will be deployments of officers from these 50 in every district in our

00:24:59.320 in our city thank you i will take one more from the floor and then we'll head to the phone yeah

00:25:04.840 and sorry about that and this is a question for the chief uh nick with city news just

00:25:09.640 kind of i just clarifying what you said earlier so you have these high-risk offenders and

00:25:14.360 you were seeing that you know they get into the court system and there's just no time served and

00:25:18.120 my my concern is like with 50 new officers and i know we do have these new programs to

00:25:23.000 you know bring them into apu and maybe you know get them on the caseworker and so on and so forth

00:25:27.640 but that could be a lot more people going through the court system is this a beginning of kind of

00:25:32.760 conversations like the next step are we going to be looking at bail reform we're going to look at

00:25:37.880 the court system and kind of fixing that issue where we have all these cases so um

00:25:45.720 so remember the overall what i've what i have said is that no longer will police

00:25:50.040 be seen as an arm of the state but instead an extension or reflection of the community that

00:25:53.480 they serve and the um scenes need to be safe uh points of contact do occur law enforcement become

00:26:02.920 a point of contact we've equipped police services in this province especially the calgary police

00:26:07.800 service who i'd argue has been very proactive on this for many many many years is it's not about

00:26:14.280 putting the handcuffs on people it's about helping them to stop the recidivism recidivism to get them

00:26:21.480 into a place where they are actually getting treatment for illnesses such as addiction,

00:26:27.640 mental health. So, you know, the bail system itself is a completely different conversation.

00:26:36.840 Let me just very briefly touch on that one. C48 has been given royal assent. I have talked to

00:26:44.760 Minister Amory to keep specific data to find out if it is actually going to be effective in keeping

00:26:53.080 violent repeat criminal offenders in custody. However, Alberta's position will still not have

00:26:58.280 changed if it does not keep violent repeat criminal offenders in custody, which will be that

00:27:04.680 we will be asking that C-75 be repealed. Now, I am cautiously optimistic. I am hopeful that C-48 0.99

00:27:12.200 will have its necessary effect but please do not conflate the two in in there's violent repeat

00:27:18.120 criminal offenders who prey upon vulnerable people and then there are vulnerable people

00:27:22.280 where the point of contact is the law enforcement community to help them to get the necessary

00:27:27.000 resources to get them on a path to wellness uh we do have some oh go ahead jeep yeah maybe just

00:27:33.400 nick i just one thing i'd like to say on that is like i think you've hit on something really

00:27:37.400 important here there's no question i mean lots of times when we talk about these complex uh

00:27:42.760 situations that are going on in the community around disorder and there's different types of

00:27:47.640 individuals involved in the system right and so make no mistake for the people that are violent

00:27:51.720 offenders and repeat offenders we're going to like the answer for some of those folks is handcuffs

00:27:55.960 for sure and we're going to do that but for the people that shouldn't be in the system it's not

00:28:00.040 so much a bail issue for those people it's around trying to be really nuanced and trying to trying

00:28:04.120 to have an opportunity to get them out i think that's where we make our best um our best bang

00:28:09.160 for our buck i think in the past when we used to actually go and you know put that flood the

00:28:13.720 downtown and everybody would you'd be a crackdown everybody would be treated the same i think through

00:28:18.680 data and through the partnerships that we have now we know that everybody is not the same and

00:28:22.600 like i say if we look at the single interactions with uh individuals out on the street you could

00:28:27.640 think that they're all the same but i think we have the ability to see that bigger broader picture

00:28:31.400 now and figure out who's the right answer but but at the end of the day the reality of it is still

00:28:35.880 for a lot of these folks it's it's still uh sad you know it's still there's folks who need supports

00:28:41.880 who will not um accept them we've got people dying in sheds for goodness sake um so those are types

00:28:49.080 of things where you know we need to keep on making sure we talk about whole of system change but

00:28:54.280 there's a lot of people that think the whole of system doesn't include the police there isn't a

00:28:57.880 path forward with this the drug crisis that doesn't actually involve the police um and so

00:29:03.320 we've got folks out there doing a great job 24 7 365 uh making relationships with people and helping

00:29:09.160 them to get into the right stream and so i think this is an augmentation of the good work that's

00:29:13.480 being done i think this is going to be really helpful um but i but i think it's a really

00:29:17.000 nuanced approach because the people that we're dealing with and who are making our citizens

00:29:20.520 feel unsafe are not they're not homogenous they're not they're not the same we do have a 0.67

00:29:26.600 reporter on the line just asked the operator to put through the first caller thank you jonathan

00:29:33.640 bradley western standard hello minister ellis thank you for taking my question um at the alberta

00:29:40.360 ucp agm there were a number of people who voiced concerns with you during the panel about the

00:29:46.680 calgary drop-in center and the criminal activity happening in that area spreading to other parts

00:29:52.280 of the downtown core and even into places such as bridgeland uh do you anticipate any of these

00:29:58.520 officers being put in the area around the calgary drop center why why not uh well thank you for the

00:30:04.920 question but that's an operational question i'm sorry i'm gonna have to ask the chief to answer

00:30:09.240 yeah i'm happy to answer the answer to that is yes of course uh that is uh downtown uh the district

00:30:14.840 one area is priority one for us uh in filling these positions and there will be a new team that

00:30:19.560 that will go down there that will deal with exactly those issues and obviously

00:30:22.740 a hot spot for us is the East Village as you talk about and in the area of the

00:30:26.280 drop-in for sure did you have a follow-up China yes I do my

00:30:31.980 follow-up is we've seen over the last year or so various social justice

00:30:37.380 activists see Calgary city councillors even a country mayor Jody Gondek say

00:30:43.560 police should be defunded how would you respond to that argument well I mean I

00:30:51.240 think I mentioned this alone like what answer earlier we of course the UCB

00:30:55.920 government supports our law enforcement community I think as the chief had

00:31:00.320 indicated you know like the police have to be a central component of this and

00:31:05.920 paraphrasing sorry chief but but it's the the police are the pointy end of the

00:31:10.540 stick. You know, especially when you're dealing with people with who, and I always, I always find

00:31:16.020 I have to explain the difference between, you know, fentanyl, which is a depressant, and then

00:31:21.320 of course, crystal meth, which is a bit of an accelerant. Crystal meth is, there's, there's no

00:31:27.020 such thing as safe crystal meth. It is one of the most dangerous, unpredictable drugs that is quite

00:31:32.220 frankly out there right now. When you're seeing people that are, you know, banging their heads

00:31:38.000 against the wall or doing we'll say erratic type of behavior um unfortunately the reality is we

00:31:45.440 need the police to go in and to make the scene safe and uh and that's just what we have to do

00:31:50.560 uh you can't you cannot eliminate the role of the law enforcement community i think that you've seen

00:31:57.680 that with jurisdictions the united states that went towards a kind of a defund the the police

00:32:03.120 sort of model uh you you will find that they are absolutely um making sure that their law

00:32:10.080 enforcement communities are being funded again so i mean i'm not going to speak to what um you know

00:32:16.160 somebody may or may not say within the city of calgary i would just say that the importance of

00:32:21.120 having our law enforcement um funded the importance of making sure that we are protecting our community

00:32:29.360 I think that is a role of quite frankly all governments. This concludes all the time we

00:32:35.280 have for today. I'd just like to thank everybody for for showing up. Thank you. Thanks everyone.

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00:33:04.660 These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada.

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Western Standard - December 14, 2023

Safer streets in Calgary

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