"You can't get higher than number one, so something has to be done."
Those are the wise words of Councillor Ryan Bater. He was speaking at Monday's City of North Battleford council meeting, making reference to the community's dismal rating on Statistics Canada's crime severity index.
Bater is frustrated, as is the rest of council and administration, about the province's apparent inability to understand the index is painting a picture of problems in a region, not just within city boundaries. And those problems need solutions now, not a year from now.
The province announced this spring that two new Centres of Responsibility would likely be established by 2015. COR is essentially funding to establish a full-time, dedicated operation of human service professionals who collaborate on longer-term solutions to community wellness and safety issues.
According to City Manager Jim Puffalt, that money will not be coming to North Battleford this year.
The City is to be commended for a plan to go ahead with their own, scaled-down version of COR, hiring a term consultant to do the work needed to co-ordinate resources to identify and reduce crime and victimization. Add this to the existing HUB, a multi-disciplinary group of front-line workers who meet twice a week to provide immediate intervention and short-term solutions, and it is obvious the City is not throwing in the towel.
But citizens need to be more than just outraged at the crime severity rating, they need to express their concerns to their representatives at the provincial and federal level. Despite repeated efforts by local government representatives to lobby for help to bring that rating into line with other communities of this size, the urgency of the problem doesn't seem to be getting through.
Anyone who takes the time to read the North Battleford RCMP daily report can see this community doesn't have a crime problem. What we have here are social problems. Admittedly the reports don't contain everything the RCMP are doing to fight crime in the community, but they certainly show a vast majority of the problems they have to deal with are rooted in addictions and alcohol and drug abuse.
Our community needs to be provided with the resources to find solutions to the underlying issues, to give an alternative to the current "catch and release" approach to individuals with addiction issues, to give homeless people an opportunity to break the cycle and to find effective ways to prevent crime.
Local government officials have raised their voices. It's time for the citizens they represent to do the same - call your MLA, call your MP. Tell them it's time for them to listen.
