North Battleford City Council has underscored its commitment to public safety programming with a motion to extend its contract with the public safety co-ordinator.
Former director of education for the Light of Christ Catholic School Division, Herb Sutton, has been working with the City as public safety co-ordinator for the last year. Monday evening, city council approved a resolution to extend the contract with Sutton to Dec. 31, 2019. The resolution also called for the option to extend the contract further for an additional year.
City Manager Jim Puffalt said, "When we created the community safety plan, it was important that we created a holistic service-based approach to community safety. Part of that means putting appropriate resources toward it."
Puffalt indicated approval of a long-term contract would represent a commitment to carry the community safety program forward, and if for some reason the present co-ordinator couldn't continue, the initiative itself could.
"That's why the importance of a long term contract, so the appropriate resources are in the budget," said Puffalt.
If Sutton should be unable to continue, someone else within the City would pick up the responsibility and carry it until other arrangements could be made, he said.
"A commitment from council allows us to work toward that."
A proactive approach is more productive than reacting after an event, and the results are starting to speak for themselves, he said. It's been noted throughout the province that North Battleford was able to see a 16 per cent drop in its crime severity index, compared with the provincial drop of one per cent and the national drop of only three per cent.
"We are well ahead of the curve," he said.
It's important to carry on, he added.
"It can't be done in a year," he said. "It's a cultural, historical process that we need to put appropriate resources to."
Council members expressed a vote of confidence in Sutton.
Councillor Don Buglas said, "We've heard many complimentary, positive comments in connection to the legwork that has happened to this point and I look forward to further success for our community and having a person in a position that's able to carry out the mandate and the goals that we have put in place."
Councillor Cathy Richardson added, "I think Mr. Sutton has a really special passion for the work that he's doing. It's very evident in what he's doing and in how he's able to connect with a wide cross section of the community and our neighbours in the region and I think the work is very positive and should continue."
Councillor Greg Lightfoot said he wholeheartedly agreed Sutton was the right person for the job. However, he reiterated the position that the province should be pitching in.
"We don't want to lose sight of the fact that we did ask the province for some help funding this position," he said. "We have to make sure we go back to the table again and make sure we reaffirm our position to say, 'This is working well, this is a new strategy that maybe the province should adopt and there should be some funding for ourselves and other communities who want to do this approach.'"
Monday's meeting also saw Sutton reporting to council on work that is being done to improve public safety. Among numerous initiatives is a focus on First Nation engagement, starting with a historical scan.
"We didn't have a lot of information about First Nations interaction with non-First Nations people prior to the 1885 rebellion," he told council, saying two groups of people each spent an afternoon at Fort Battleford doing library research.
"We pulled books off the shelves and did some reading," he said. "We did find that there was a lot of positive interaction between First Nations and non-First Nations prior to the 1885 rebellion. That was good for us to know. It was something everybody kind of suspected, but we didn't know for sure."
He added, "One of the things we found that was pretty significant was that from about 1850 to 1885-1890, there was a huge, huge change in the lifestyle and the culture of the First Nation people."
He said even he, as a person who taught history in school, didn't realize the short time period in which they were expected to make some pretty significant changes. "One of the books that I read talked about Big Bear, who would never have seen a non-First Nations person until he was 20 years old and 15 years later he's negotiating treaties," he said. "So that's a huge shift in thinking, and I think it helped myself, for sure, and others understand the speed of the change that was required, which I think we can all appreciate would be very difficult for a culture that had been hear for hundreds and thousands of years. That's important and I think it will certainly impact on some of the work we do moving forward."
Sutton also told council he had the opportunity last week to spend a few days at Moosomin First Nation with residents from that First Nation and from Saulteaux First Nation who are working on a community safety plan together, he said.
"It was a real honour for me to be able to participate with these folks … they really do have a very deep and honest understanding of the communities they live in and some of the challenges they are facing," he said.
"They talked about the breakdown of the family unit, alcohol and drug abuse, lack of hope, learned dependency, so I think they have a good handle on what the issues are, and now the work will begin on how they address that on the First Nations."
He also said there was positive sense of moving forward from where they are now, "I was really encouraged by that."
