Everything is Connected: Sustainable Solutions, Budget, City Services, and VicPD Issues

Preamble

Policing

I have read all the candidates positions on their websites related to crime, policing and safety. Mine are very close to Stephen Andrew, Steve Orcherton, Marg Gardiner and a few others. I was a staff rep for my school in Prince Rupert and have served in the same capacity at Central Junior Secondary and in adult education at S.J. Willis, including being part of provincial BCTF curriculum evaluation and design teams. The police union, as with the BCTF, is crucial for members facing dismissal, suffering from mental health issues, or taking internal or external positions that challenge the bureaucracy. The union ensures due processes are followed in disciplinary matters. I would act to ensure proper funding is in place for police to do their work, including funding wage parity over and above cost of living.

I agree with Marg Gardiner that the City of Victoria budget could use a reboot from scratch using a “Zero-based Budget lens” to identify “overlaps and consolidation opportunities,” but I am not convinced that zero-based budgeting will provide enough funds through the re-allocation of overlaps in services and resources. To provide what is needed for policing, cancelling larger projects such as the Crystal pool would have to occur. Amalgamation for police has its pros and cons but wage parity and staffing work loads are huge issues now, contributing to lower recruitment.

Sustainable solutions to complex problems is a major theme of my campaign, but COVID, mental health, addiction, opioid overdoses, and housing for the unhoused and for those renters vulnerable to eviction makes for a very complex issue indeed. I address many of the housing issues in #2 of my platform.

I still need to investigate the City budget thoroughly in its interconnected entirety, but I do have high-level math skills, which should help. We have a new library, a new art gallery, bylaws, the fire department and many City programs to help fund, along with projects ranging from the Crystal Pool to shore power issues for cruise ships (preventing air pollution with diesel fumes not to mention the problem with ships’ dumping sewage in BC waters).

The wrong kind of densification is making the housing crisis worse. The unhoused are severely testing our public services healthcare, police, fire, ambulance services and bylaw officers. The City budget, provincial and federal funding connect with all of these, yet the current load on our city services is also unsustainable.

What follows now is my take on VicPD policing and safety Issues with specific reference to: what police do, extra workloads for VicPD, Cartels and their influence, strained services, cost savings with a specific focus on prolific offenders, PACT & GVRT, budget options, pressuring the provincial government, treatment, support and trauma therapy and ways to increases the police budget to pressure the province and neighbouring municipalities to contribute to the regional policing issues that localize in our City.

All of what I say above and below has to be taken with a large grain of salt. What I do know is tiny compared to what I don’t know. A. L. Mencken said, “For every complex problem there is is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong. I am reasonably intelligent, but I have fallen for simple answers before. There are often unintended consequences for anything we propose. Dialogue with a wide range of people with different political views, including those with expertise within the area of concern (police in this case) is very valuable and I will continue to take this approach as Councillor. Better, sustainable solutions to the complex problems facing VicPD staff are truly achievable.

Policing and Safety

What Police Do

I started my 33-year teaching career in New Aiyansh (now Gitlaxt’aamix) with the Nisga’a or Nishga people as many pronounced it. During that time I got to know the RCMP officer based outside the village. He served the other Nisga’a villages such as Ging̱olx (then Kincolith, Gitwinksihlkw (then Canyon City) and Laxgalts’ap ( then Greenville). New Aiyansh was mostly a dry village by choice of the people, and he strove to have a good-humoured and friendly relationship with all. He was a professional who took his impartial law-based role with a gentle but firm authority, and was well-liked and appreciated by that community. He made an effort to get to know them as people. There is an art to doing anything well which is inexpressible in words, and so it is with good policing.

In my experience most police are like him, and as part of the school system in four different school districts I have seen them take part in drug&alcohol awareness, bicycle&traffic safety, bike&horse patrols, and act as school liaison officers for students at risk. When I am asked what role they should play I think of the above and the following:

regular policing to prevent, detect and respond to crime, ensuring public safety and order for all at City events simply by their presence or while making arrests
standard investigative procedures we see in police dramas and what we don’t see hours and hours of time- consuming documentation from search warrants, preparation time for interviews of victims and those charged, computer system work and preparing to provide testimony in court.
emergency assistance for victims of crime, missing persons, disaster response (earthquake, fires or floods), and extra policing for special events, including legislature protests
default providers for people in mental health, drug or alcohol crisis, yet they are the enforcement pillar of the Five Pillars Strategy the City uses, but prevention, treatment, harm reduction and housing, the other four pillars, are in chaos, leaving the police in an unsustainable situation, picking up roles they aren’t trained for.

VicPD’s Unique Responsibilities and Extra Workloads

Our police department has far more of a load than other jurisdictions just from Victoria being the provincial capital. The large unhoused population on the streets (Pandora& parks) and the policing of two hotels (formerly Paul’s Motor Inn & Comfort Inn) and a number of other smaller locations)), which can and do have major issues. The 30 tiny homes built out of shipping containers at Royal Athletic Park seem to be less of a problem as with the smaller non-profit buildings but likely still add to the demand on policing.

In my opinion, a lack of proper funding for the extra work put on the police has resulted in the populace and some council candidates to seek non-policing solutions with police funds. They say the police are not equipped to deal with people in crisis, yet VicPD officers have crisis intervention and de-escalation (CID) training which is re-certified annually, Crisis also have significant additional training and expertise. Much like the 90s saw teachers being blamed for not integrating special needs students properly. It was the education policy which mainstreamed special needs program students into regular classrooms without support, increasing demands classroom teachers. In a similar manner, police are being blamed for something the provinces did in the 1980s (closing of psychiatric facilities) and for the cuts in federal funding in the 1990s. They like teachers, doctors and nurses are the face of the system and bear the brunt of expectations and demand for service.

VicPD’s Unique Responsibilities and Extra Workloads

Cartels’ Influences

Over the past two decades, BC has had an increasing problem with trans-national money laundering occurring in casinos and real estate investment, the latter contributing to rising land prices. Journalist Sam Cooper describes a willful blindness on the part of politicians to this problem. BC and Canada have been “a ‘convergence zone’ for Chinese, Middle-Eastern, Mexican and Columbian Cartels. The money to be made seems to outweigh the harm politicians have “noticed in sky-high real estate prices and the corpse heaps of dead fentanyl users.” Heroin, medical opiates, opium, ecstasy, and methyl amphetamine are also part of their business. This has to be something which our police have major concerns about as these trans-national criminal networks are flourishing behind the scenes in Canada and elsewhere. The public would be quite surprised that the avocado they have in their salad could be part of a Mexican Cartel’s sophisticated money laundering process or that a good number of houses in Victoria are owned by ordinary drug dealers, and many more by organized criminal networks. Police have to be freed up to follow the money from our streets.

Strained Services

One in five people (18% of the population) have some kind of mental health issue and the police are likely no exception. They are also having to deal with people with acute or chronic issues in crisis often paired with criminal acts, drug use or brain injury. The health system is in chaos for ordinary citizens never mind those with mental health issues. People are suffering. Everyone counts is a slogan that should apply to all citizens, including members of our police force.

Both the education system in Victoria and the medical system have been and are under a similar financial strain, with wages kept low and far higher demands on the system and on individuals. They are being asked to do more and more with less and less. However for the most part doctors and teachers do not have to put their life on the line at any moment of the day.

Other levels of government need to take action but there will be a delay in solving these policing issues and in establishing a full-spectrum-of-care response for mental health, addiction and housing for the general public and for people on the street. In the meantime, higher “priority one” emergency calls are making lower priority issues such as public outreach, school liaison, speeding, road side drunk-driver screening, traffic safety and response times unmanageable. These are all necessary to ensure public safety.

Cost Savings with a Specific Focus on Prolific Offenders

Mobile speed photo- radar traps could be announced and used in random locations to bring the speeding situation on city streets without using precious police time.

There have been a number of studies that show crime is lower in neighbourhoods with significant urban trees and green space (wealth factor aside). Preserving and planting trees prevent crime.

I agree with the recent Butler-Lepard report which looked at repeat offenders. The province is working on three of the recommendations, which include:

bringing back the prolific offender program that ran from 2008 until 2012. This has been successful in the UK for years.
co-ordinating supports for people with complex health-care needs in the criminal justice system
piloting work by the BC First Nations Justice Council to better support Indigenous people who come into conflict with the law.

The Priority Prolific Offender Program scheme in the UK started in 2004 and has reduced recidivism by 43% and recidivism has been reduced further by psychologically-informed correctional treatment. Electronic leg bracelet monitoring is used, coupled with an individualized Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to address the need to commit crime. Why was BC’s prolific offender program cancelled in 2012 and why is the province delaying now? A 40% reduction in recidivism would save huge amounts of money and service time.

Since it appears that there will be a significant lag time in establishing a full-spectrum-of-care response, we need to remove the criminal element on the street by using their crimes as leverage to get them voluntarily or involuntarily committed to treatment. Recently one individual was sent to a forensic clinic in Coquitlam, sending all of such individuals there may result in provincial action for more local facilities on the island.

Relocating the homeless population to a safe location(s) away from Pandora, downtown, and city parks is also a possibility, with secure and regular shuttle service to needed services ( Our Place etc.). A location with onsite services and security/police presence would be an essential first step. I return to this in the next section. We need to enforce bylaws and deal with the recidivist criminal element firmly, ensuring safety for all. A location with onsite services and security/police presence could be an essential first step.

PACT & GVRT Combined or in Parallel?

Deadly accidents happen in relatively benign yet unpredictable situations when police are the default responders. Yet, civilians are not prepared to handle situations that involve in-situ violence, weapons or domestic abuse in progress. Nevertheless, I support the PACT pilot project (Peer-Assisted Crisis Teams) active in parallel and in partnership with police to provide medical, social service, and non-dangerous assistance to people in crisis or as means to avert crises. This will free up more police time to focus on their duties to protect the public and deal with the crime. It may prove to be a cost saving program, but it can’t solve the main problems, and any mental health situation can become unmanageable if things go awry in de-escalation attempts.

At the CRD level this year there has been a move to a governance model, involving RCMP units (the Integrated Mobile Crisis Response Team, Mobile Youth Services Team, and Regional Domestic Violence Unit), and the non-RCMP units are the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team (GVERT), and Greater Victoria Public Safety Unit.

Recently the Johnson Street Bridge was closed because a person in crisis was prepared to jump off it. The situation was successfully resolved by the GVERT team. Perhaps all we need to do is fund the existing GVERT Crisis Negotiators, so they can expand their services. They are “members of the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team. While VicPD officers have crisis intervention and de-escalation (CID) training which is re-certified annually, Crisis Negotiators have significant additional training and expertise. Crisis Negotiators have extensive training in trauma-informed approaches to crisis de-escalation and many years’ experience working to resolve incidents safely. In addition to their regular duties, Crisis Negotiators serve as an on-call resource, responding 24-hours-a-day across Greater Victoria to police incidents. These calls often include barricaded persons and armed persons in crisis. Utilizing a variety of communication techniques, Crisis Negotiators work to build rapport and trust to help resolve incidents through dialogue. Crisis Negotiators are utilized in the majority of high-risk critical incidents which involve GVERT.”

Do we need both PACT and GVERT or can they be combined into something better? Personally, I believe that PACT teams working with a special plain clothed police unit like GVERT is a better option, but would like to hear what the police membership, the unhoused, and mental health community think about this.

Treatment, Support and Trauma Therapy

We need a CRD forensic treatment centre and specialized clinics for short-term and long-term treatment for mental health, addiction and trauma therapy for all citizens, including police. The former will reduce the need for recidivist’s toll on police time…eventually 2-3-4 years from now.

Ways to Increase the Police Budget

Bridging money needs to be applied in the short term as we wait for these facilities on the island. I am not clear as to how the budget could best be altered to provide for police’s funding needs or if it is even possible within the present budget. CRD amalgamation of police forces is tricky politically, but it is not clear that it would be tenable or lower cost. What is clear is that police and bylaw officers in our community need more support and funding immediately. The present situation is not sustainable for serving members or the community, with shifts being affected by increased call loads (fewer active officers per shift), assaults on officers, injury, retirement, low morale, and PTSD health &stress leaves. Vic PD crime statistics show that crime is down overall but violent crime and property crime are up. School liaison and police- on-bicycle programs have already been cut. Drug and alcohol, digital safety & anti-bullying programs for schools are likely not possible now, distancing police further from public education roles in the community, schools and for at-risk youth.

At present the police budget is only going up by 1.6%, which is an effective cut given the present rate of inflation. The capital budget for police vehicles, equipment, and infrastructure is actually being cut in the 2023 budget by three-hundred thousand dollars. General property taxes should be increased to provide a catch up or the CRD and province needs to be made to step up and contribute for many of the regional issues are localized in the City. If the CRD or province don’t participate, we will still need to fund both wage parity and extra staffing.

The UBCM and our local Downtown Victoria Business Association supports specific actions at the municipal, provincial and federal levels of government. At the municipal level they want council candidates to pledge city dollars for increased police resources from sanitation and anti graffiti programs to stronger bylaw enforcement. I am committed to doing so if elected .and alcohol, digital safety & anti-bullying programs for schools are likely not possible now, distancing police further from public education roles in the community, schools and for at-risk youth.

Turning up the Pressure on the Province

The CRD needs to put pressure on the provincial government to fund the special RCMP and non-RCMP units aforementioned. In the interim, I would be willing to go so far as putting forward a 2-3 year temporary and additional special property tax on residents of SFH, Air Bnb’s, and hotels (this could be designed to be restricted to people who have owned their homes or businesses for more than 10, 20, or 30 years, including protection for low-income home owners (which is available for seniors in the deferral of property taxes). An expanded PACT program could be funded through this as well. We also need to fund what is required for policing the hotels converted to housing by the province, and this extra tax should fund the extra policing costs required. Ten or more extra officers would likely cost well over a million dollars. How many is too many, and how many is too much? The total cost of these constables would be accounted for separately and be submitted to the province for reimbursement to fund the next 2 years with the support of all motivated tax payers, mobilized to put further pressure on the province. The very act of suggesting this will create pressure.