The State of Canada's Cities and Communities 2012 - FCM

Chapter 4
Page 4
Front-line community police are also seeing
frustrating trends, as challenges within Canada’s
mental health system begin to play out on our
streets. A 2010 Vancouver Police Department
report, Policing Vancouver’s Mentally Ill: Beyond
the Disturbing Truth, suggests that, because of
shortfalls in Canada’s health care system, “the
police have become society’s 24/7 de facto
front-line mental health workers.” 7 The Vancouver
Police Department is working with Vancouver
Coastal Health to address the overwhelming
proportion of police resources dedicated to
responding to mental health and addiction
problems within the community. Other jurisdictions
across Canada have added or increased
training related to policing and mental health.
To address violence and crime in our communities,
we have to prevent crime through social
development—by providing the requisite social
infrastructure, for example—and address the root
causes of crime, which involves complex social,
economic and cultural factors.
3. Restoring Accountability
Municipal property taxpayers pay hundreds of
millions of dollars a year to purchase front-line
policing services from the RCMP, but there is no
vision—from a governance perspective—on how
the RCMP should respond to local needs, nor
how its municipal policing function fits within
its overall mandate.
More glaring is the lack of clarity and accountability
when it comes to municipal support for
RCMP functions. Wherever the RCMP provides
local policing, costs and contributions are governed
by 20-year contracts. By contrast, there
are no intergovernmental agreements, standards,
or protocols recognizing municipal contributions
to federal policing.
With a lack of standard agreements on service
levels, inadequate investments in federal policing
services, and no agreed-upon approach to
public safety priorities, local budgets have been
pushed to the breaking point as municipalities
struggle to protect their communities and
local taxpayers.
The Government of Canada has put fighting
crime and protecting communities at the top
of its national agenda. Canada needs a new
approach to policing and public safety, however.
We must clarify roles and responsibilities, and
embrace common-sense cooperation wherever
possible. That way we can keep our communities
safe, and put their front-line police services on
solid ground.
Moving Forward
Municipalities understand that current economic
realities are constraining all orders of
government; but we also know that, when
federal and provincial governments do not meet
their policing and public safety responsibilities,
municipalities are left to fill the gaps, putting a
strain on their limited fiscal capacity. As more
money is spent on policing, there are fewer
resources available to address other services
that contribute to safe and healthy communities.
This is not sustainable for municipalities, or for
property taxpayers.
The time to have a frank discussion about the
future of Canada’s policing and public safety
system is now. FCM’s President has been doing
just that with public-safety stakeholders across
the country. He will be reporting on his findings
at a national policing summit planned by all
policing stakeholders in the Fall of 2012.
7 Thompson, Scott, Inspector, Policing Vancouver’s Mentally Ill: Beyond the Disturbing Truth, September 2010, p 11.