Efforts to tackle crime and public safety will just keep “spinning” without significant change.
That was one of the themes that emerged during a crime and public safety forum attended by about 140 people in New Westminster on Wednesday night. Hosted by New West Progressives’ city councillors Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas, the forum featured three panellists: Dave Jones, former New Westminster Police Department chief constable and former Transit Police chief officer; Shirley Heafey, a former member of the New Westminster police board; and Kash Heed, former chief constable of the West Vancouver Police Department and a former Liberal MLA who served as B.C.’s Solicitor General.
“Public safety should not be politicized. Public safety crosses everybody, from the rich to the poor. It crosses everybody in our communities, whether you're young, whether you're old. And when we politicize that, we cause problems,” Jones said. “Very simply put, everybody has a right to be safe. Everybody has a right to be safe within the environment they find themselves in. So from the person who's living in the home that's multi-millions and has all the alarm systems, they deserve to be safe, to the person who's potentially homeless, sleeping in a tent or something, they deserve to be safe.”
Jones said police officers have become the default response for dealing with a variety of societal issues, including homelessness, addictions and mental health.
“Until we look at doing it differently, until we look at different models and place the responsibility somewhere else – and when I say somewhere else, with the right person – we're spinning in a cycle that just keeps going,” he said.
Using hospitals as an example, Jones said some may say doctors and surgeons are the most important people in those buildings – but they’re a small percentage of the folks working in hospitals and they’re supported by an entire team of nurses, technicians, clerks and other staff.
“In today's world, if policing ran that building, they'd insist that everyone was a doctor,” he said. “And that doesn't work. … I can tell you that the supports need to be there. But it's not always about more police officers; it's about more supports that can address some of these issues.”
Heafey, who served on the New Westminster police board from May 2021 until May 2023, said an “incredibly hard working” group of people work for the police department and they do good work. She expressed concern, however that the department is “stuck in the past.”
“Police are having a really hard time, the frontlines especially,” she said. “And what I'm very disappointed about is there's not a willingness to try something else, another way of doing things, another way of doing policing, another way of structuring the police. And that was not welcome at all. So, for me, it was not very progressive.”
Heafey said she’s done a lot of research into the concept of tiered policing, and believes it should be introduced in New Westminster. Heafey, who has a lengthy career in police oversight, served on the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP for 10 years, including two terms as chair, and was counsel and public complaints director for the Calgary Police Commission for nine years.
“I really wanted the police service in New West to try it or just think about it or to plan it; just a thought. And all I got was: ‘No, the union wouldn't like it,’” she told attendees at the forum. “So that shortly after that, I left. Because progress, you have to think about progress.”
Heafey said tiered policing would allow fully-sworn police officers to deal with “the biggest jobs” and would shift some responsibilities, such as reading reports, to other workers. She applauded Jones’ efforts to introduce a new approach to police services at the Transit Police.
Perception versus reality
During the two-hour forum, the panellists responded to questions from the hosts and community members on a range of topics, including regionalization of policing, school liaison officers in schools, concerns about “street disorder” and the perceptions/reality of crime in the city.
Jones stressed that homelessness, mental health and addictions are not crimes, but they can sometimes result in nuisance behaviours that others have to deal with. He said it’s wrong to use crime statistics to argue with people who feel unsafe or feel like there is more disorder in their community, as those feelings are based on their individual experiences.
“You've got to take a look at what is the reality, what is causing that concern,” he said. “So I would say to you, if you're experiencing that, then there's an issue that needs to be addressed. And sometimes it's the appearance of it. Sometimes it's an educational process.”
Heed said municipal governments have a role to play in addressing the “urban decay” that’s being seen in cities and in advocating to senior governments and agencies for initiatives to address those problems.
“We just can't default everything to the police,” he said. “We have got to look at different ways of doing things, different ways of creating the safer environment for you, whether it's actual crime, or the perception of crime or fear of crime, which is more harmful than some of the crimes that are committed by themselves.”
The need for a “crisis response” to dealing with the overdose, homelessness and mental health crises was also raised at the forum.
One attendee noted that the Peer Assisted Crisis Team, which is being piloted in New Westminster, recently expanded its hours. Another pointed out that city council had recently supported implementation of a pilot project to address the crises of homelessness, mental health and substance use.
Jones said those are the types of things that are needed, but their success will be determined by how they’re delivered in the community and what services it’s able to provide.
Heed said crisis prevention units are being launched in cities like Seattle, Portland and Oakland, and they’re all tied in to services that have handled, by default, by police departments.
“If you want to look at something like that, if we want to be really creative, we should look at it from a regional perspective, so we can get those resources,” he said.
One of the biggest rounds of applause of the night came when a Queen’s Park resident questioned how citizens are able to have discussions with civic leaders who are “are more concerned about policing what we say and not about actual policing.” He said his concerns were in response to some residents’ comments being labelled as stigmatizing of vulnerable populations, after a local mom appearance on a radio program and expressed concern about crime and public safety, which included finding two dead bodies in her neighbourhood.
What’s next?
Fontaine and Minhas said they decided to host the meeting after hearing from constituents who are concerned about crime and public safety.
Some people didn't want us to have this gathering tonight,” Fontaine told the crowd. “They told Coun. Minhas and I: Don't do this; don’t bring people together because you're going to get people riled up. I don't see any people here riled up. I see people tonight who are concerned about their community, have some great ideas and some great comments.”
The two councillors plan to co-author a report/memo about the meeting and present it to city council and the police board.
