UBERBUREAUCRAT NO SOLUTION TO CRIME

Sky-Is-Falling Rhetoric About Law And Order Should
Stop

From Langley to Lions Bay, across the Greater Vancouver regional
district, crime always shows up among voter concerns.

But in this municipal campaign there has been scant pertinent debate
about real law-and-order issues.

The governance structure of the Lower Mainland makes it difficult for
regional concerns to make their way on to the political agenda I think
because of each separate civic contest.

The debates I've watched so far have underscored that parochialism,
which hides behind the masquerade of maintaining "local control."

Local concerns -- the "my television was stolen last week, my
neighbour's car the week before" mentality -- hobble discussion beyond
the usual platitudes about the need to support the men and women in
blue.

Which might not be a bad thing since crime tends to produce those
kinds of emotional outbursts rather than thoughtful policy discussion.

Part of the reason I believe is media attention to criminal incidents
is great and many people in the community have a visceral, innate fear
these days they are at greater risk.

It's not true, but the idea persists that we are living in an
increasingly crime-ridden environment.

Hence, I think, the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association's mayoral
candidate Sam Sullivan's plan to create a crime czar.

Count me with Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham -- that's his job
and we don't need another level of bureaucracy. If there's a policing
problem in the city, lay responsibility at Graham's feet.

But crime has been declining across the board -- including the Board
of Trade's latest hobbyhorse, "property crime."

As Sullivan's nemesis Jim Green pointed out at a recent all-candidates
forum, property crime went down by 11 per cent last year. If Graham is
to be called to task for anything, it's not runaway crime.

Vancouver and the metropolitan region are not all sweetness and light,
but like Green, I think we should stop the sky-is-falling rhetoric.

There are some serious issues in terms of crime in the city and across
the Lower Mainland that should concern every civic voter but I suggest
they are mostly being overlooked. In West Van, they're chasing teenage
pranksters while cops in New West are overloaded chasing career thugs.

In part, I think we probably require the province to initiate and
drive the discussions. Attorney-General Wally Oppal has long thought
we need a more regional approach to policing -- he is in a good
position to spark such a discussion.

The time is now in my opinion, especially considering the cluster of
crime that seems to surround every SkyTrain station. The crime line is
more like it.

Still if the bad guys are using the rapid transit system to access
vulnerable bedroom communities while people are at work in the city
core, what better argument for more coordination and cooperation? What
do your candidates think should be done?

The number of shootings and the gang-related violence in the
metropolitan area, too, is an epidemic. We need a much more united
effort from civic governments and the various police forces to combat
this cancer -- which is not a problem isolated within the so-called
Indo-Canadian community or one that respects the current municipal
patchwork of jurisdictions.

Green, in the Vancouver campaign appearances I've caught, seems to
recognize the answer to some of these concerns is definitely about
marshalling and perhaps increasing law-enforcement resources, not in
creating a new police uberbureaucrat.

I haven't found Sullivan at all persuasive on these
questions.

But even here there is little appetite for more regional concerns
because they can only muddy the waters with voters.

I think that's too bad because this is a time when it would be good to
hear from candidates about how they would address cross-jurisdictional
problems and not just their own municipality's particular ailments.

Police agencies in the metropolitan area, for instance, certainly are
aware they need to continually find ways to quickly and to effectively
share information, intelligence and expensive assets such as mobile
command posts or helicopters. No senior officer serving in the GVRD
would not set high on their priority list the integration and sharing
of specialized services and resources.

Such ad hoc gerrymandering among the forces is becoming more and more
important, since no one seems to want to step up to the plate and own
the concern.

I think how we go forward should be part of the current electoral
debate.

Same with the safe-injection site and the integrated social planning
experiment Vancouver has pioneered on the Downtown Eastside that is
being hailed. Shouldn't we be looking at such policies in Surrey? In
New Westminster? Wouldn't that save us all tax money?

Similarly, I can't help thinking the community court brooked as a
prescription to Vancouver's disorder and petty-crime, should be part
of a metropolitan antidote --if not a provincial program.