Election 2017 is one week old with three weeks remaining. A big issue and resonates with everyone is crime. There is evidence of increased crime every where and facts can be found at Statscan and other reports.
You can watch it on CBC or read about it in the Red Deer Advocate, the Huffington Post, and Maclean’s magazine.
Tara Veer our mayor and candidate has well articulated platform on her website;
Red Deerians have identified crime and public safety as their priority concern, so it is imperative that additional strategies are undertaken to ensure crime prevention and enforcement efforts are effective to respond to the safety challenges Red Deer is faced with. If re-elected as Mayor, Tara will continue to actively work to:
Ensure that local community policing priorities are established and enforced through the RCMP’s annual policing plan.
Strengthen the integration between municipal enforcement units and the RCMP to ensure common objectives, efficiency, and quality of service in all delegation of duties.
Prioritize reduction of organized crime, persons crime and property crime in the policing plan.
Identify consistent service standards for non-emergency calls to police.
Reduce the case load per officer and improve officers to population ratio by supporting the addition of new officers.
Reinforce enforcement allocations to foot patrols downtown and in the parks system.
Support the safety continuum from crime prevention through to emergency enforcement.
Increase citizen reporting to help inform crime analysis, intelligence-led policing and patrols.
Establish a strong local and regional regulatory response to the Federal Government’s legalization of marijuana.
Advocate for additional Crown Prosecutors to prevent criminal charges from being “stayed” because of capacity issues at the Red Deer Courthouse.
Hold the Provincial Government accountable for drug needle debris causing general community safety risks.
Quite a large stand on the issue but several candidates think it is not enough or possibly in the wrong direction.
Jason Habouza was informed enough to direct me to the Huffington Report on the 10 safest cities in Canada. These are based on Statscan Crime Severity Index, a new tool for measuring police-reported crime in Canada that for the first time tracks changes in the severity of crime, not just volume.
The report also examines how crime is measured in Canada, as well as recent improvements to statistics on crime that are gathered from the police.
The ten safest cities though of various sizes are all located in Ontario and Quebec and do not solely rely on the RCMP. Ontario and Quebec have provincial police departments.
#1 Quebec City, population 800,296 CSI-41.8
#2 Barrie, population 135,711 CSI-43.3
#3 Toronto, population 6 million, CSI-45.7
#4 Ottawa, population 1.25 million, CSI-46.5
#5 Guelph, population 131,794, CSI-48.4
#6 Sherbrooke, population 161,323 CSI-49.2
#7 Hamilton, population 747,545 CSI-50.5
#8 St. Catharine-Niagars, population 406,074, CSI-52.2
#9 Gatineau, population 276,245 CSI-53.6
#10 Saguenay, population 145,365, CSI-53.8

Then we have Canada, Population 36.29 million, CSI-70.96
At 5,224 incidents per 100,000 population, the police-reported crime rate, which measures the volume of police-reported crime, was virtually unchanged in 2016. This rate was 28% lower than a decade earlier in 2006.

Then we continue down to the second highest city in Canada and you guessed it.
Red Deer, population 99,832 CSI -182.03. Which translates to about 13,400 incidents per 100,000.
Alberta, as a province, did experience the largest increase (+18 per cent), which was largely attributed to more reported incidents of breaking and entering, theft of $5,000 or under, and motor vehicle theft. Grande Prairie Alberta is the city with the highest CSI in Canada.
Canada’s CSI-70.96, P.E.I. -48.52, Ontario-52.71, Alberta-102.49, Manitoba-114.44, Saskatchewan- 148.84 but Northwest Territories with a population of 41,462 had a CSI – 291.72. Which translates into 21,476 incidents per 100,000 or or 8904 incidents in 2016.

Red Deer under the current model has gone from 15 position in 2011 to the second highest Crime Severity Index across Canada in 2016. Do we look at other models.

Councillor Buck Buchanan has been advocating for looking at a more hybrid model. He encouraged Councillor Dianne Wyntjes to propose a Notice of Motion this last term regarding a Hybrid. Unfortunately the Vote went 4-4 hence lost.
What the hope was, was to get the Response Policing taken over by the Municipality and Contracting the Specialist & Federal Policing Contracted by the Force (GIS, Drugs, Intelligence etc, etc). right now we have (160) one hundred and Sixty members (80) eighty of those do Response Policing (Responding to Calls) and the other (80) eighty do other jobs. They have always said they are 12-15 short in the Response area my solution, take (110) one hundred and ten or so and do Response Policing and contract for the other 40-50 for what he called Big City Copping.
There were 2 issues that were concerns that may have led to motion being lost.
1) another Union/Association
2) having the Capacity to do same Recruiting, Hiring, Training, Equipping.
The other thing that concerned the City is a Police Commission which comes with a Municipal Force.
The hopes and plans may have led to a better Service Delivery (more control locally) and (2) two may have gotten us into the game in regards to cost, if we get much bigger manpower wise we will not be in a position to afford to have any other option, other than the Force.
The big issue initially would be the start up cost as there will be a cost associated with same.
Remember this is the biggest Municipal Detachment. the Force has outside of B.C. and for the Force it is about positions in a lot of instances.
So the incumbents and challengers are starting to formulate different positions and the voters need to look at all and decide which way to go. Should we advocate for a provincial police force, a municipal police force, a hybrid model, or stay with the RCMP? Should we study this?