ELECTION ISSUES: Street issues and crime

It has the mayoral candidates making community safety a No. 1 priority in their campaigns.

“Cutting down on crime means getting more boots on the ground, and that means asking for more police officers, which we have done. In fact, we’ve asked for 25 more officers over a five-year period and council has passed that,” said Kamloops mayoral candidate Dieter Dudy. “It’s a question of whether Ottawa’s going to give us those.”

Dudy says the city is trying to get more Community Service Officers hired to keep a closer eye on the community as well.

Ray Dhaliwal agrees wholeheartedly there needs to be 24-hour surveillance to have more of a presence in the community, which has been lacking he says in the last few years.

“The street people know that and there’s just no enforcement, so more boots on the ground. We need to strengthen our CSO program, our bylaws — bring them back into service. The old members were let go, but we need to bring that experience back into the city.”

Local politicians know there a problem, but don’t have a silver bullet to solve all the problems at once.

Mayoral candidate Sadie Hunter noted at the Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting last month, three Kamloops councillors, including herself, asked tough questions on how the city can deal with its crime problem.

“What I got and what I heard was a committment for short-term resources, they call it surge capacity to redirect some resources here to fill the shortage we do have in terms of RCMP officers,” said Hunter. “So that is one thing, and it’s a tangible outcome that I think will make a difference.

Hunter noted more RCMP officers should be arriving in November.

Fellow mayoral candidate Arjun Singh feels you can’t “arrest your way out of the problem.” He says the priority should be helping people get back on their feet. Singh is proposing a Mayor’s Taskforce on Community Safety and 24-hour outreach teams on the Kamloops streets — paid by the city.

“We have to have more people, those teams, in my view. Again, city-funded, which is the innovation there because the city hasn’t really funded that before,” said Singh. “It gives police less jobs. They’re not really the best people to handle [mental health]. They’re very good at what they handle with crime.”

Reid Hamer-Jackson wants to revamp the shelter system and to have more people in recovery. He’s asking for a third-party review of CMHA and ASK Wellness’ harm reduction facilities throughout the city.

“Make the facilities accountable. They’ve always said they have wrap-around services. During the day, you see all these people on the streets, but at four o’clock in the morning there’s not near as many on the street. They’re in these buildings. It’s what they’re not doing when they go in the buildings and it’s what they’re not doing when they get out of the buildings. They’re just hanging around doing nothing,” said Hamer-Jackson.

The candidates say council needs to keep pushing the provincial government for more resources, including complex care and another nurse for Car 40 to help the situation locally.

by Chad Klassen

ELECTION ISSUES: Street issues and crime

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