By Curtis Galbraith

City Hall

Public Safety Unit staying through 2023

Apr 20, 2023 | 6:00 AM

Council voted to use $710,000 from a reserve fund to keep the Public Security Unit going until the end of 2023 at Monday’s meeting.

Councillor Dylan Bressey calls this part of the city’s responses to tiered policing.

“Realizing that you don’t always need an RCMP officer to responding to everything, especially when they’re a scarce resource.”

“When we’ve got issues of minor trespassing or we need to enforce rules in a municipal facility, it makes sense to have other resources to deal with that.”

This project sees private security companies hired to help answer these kinds of calls.

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Bressey adds residents and businesses have had good things to say about the unit.

“They appreciate having higher visibility of patrols and they appreciate having a resource that responds quickly when they call for trespassing or other minor calls.”

Bressey says he expects there to be a discussion about whether to keep this program going in future years at fall budget talks.

“Those conversations, I’m sure, will have to happen alongside the police commission.”

“For me personally, I think 24/7 coverage is really important in the summer. I don’t know if it’s as important in the winter when it’s -20, but maybe it is, so I look forward to those future conversations.”

Bressey says the city has spent a lot of money on supportive housing and getting people off the street should mean a reduction in what he calls “social disorder.”

“So that should mean that we need less enforcement resources going forward as we actually give people compassionate, realistic help to improve their situation, we won’t need as many enforcement resources.”

The Public Security Unit started in August of 2022 as a pilot project.