Crime and anti-social behaviour

A successful democracy depends on rule of law, with everyone – rich, poor, middle class – held personally accountable for their actions.
That doesn’t mean more police, because police are expensive (well over $300k per position), unavailable due to RCMP staffing shortages, and using police to enforce non-criminal but still anti-social behaviour is ineffective and costly.

There are more cost-effective ways for us to create a safer, more socially and economically vibrant community. These solutions include:
1. Bylaw enforcement: I will introduce a motion in the first 100 days to scrap the City’s bylaw enforcement policy and replace it with one that issues actual fines, not warning after warning. Whether you’re parked on the sidewalk so our kids have to walk to school in dangerous traffic, smoking meth in a playground, parked in a handicapped spot so a person with disabilities cannot use it, or wasting water during a drought, you’ll be held financially accountable.
2. Increased support for the Mobile integrated Crisis Response team, and strong advocacy to higher levels of government for improved provincial mental health, addiction, and housing supports, including treatment beds right here in the CV - but with effective management and strong enforcement of rules.

3. Improved nuisance and property standards bylaws: abandoned properties, hoarders, slumlords and drug houses are crime vectors and must be targeted, far sooner, by much larger fines.

4. More red light and speed cameras, especially in and near school zones, because motor vehicles are one of the top three causes of death among young British Columbians.

100% of the revenue from traffic offences goes to local policing, so this will ensure irresponsible drivers pay their fair share.
5. Hidden trail cams: big fines and public naming and shaming will mitigate the number of incidents of individuals despoiling our environment.

How is enforcing bylaws going to reduce crime?

Because “quality-of-life policing” works. (And doesn't actually need police. It just needs enforcement.)

Targeting lesser offences creates a culture of lawfulness. Conversely, a culture of impunity where lesser offences are allowed leads to lawlessness.

And it’s no surprise that individuals who don’t believe the Criminal Code should apply to them also don’t believe bylaws, the Motor Vehicle Act, or any other societal rules apply to them.

Do you support Braidwood?

Yes, in principle – but only if strong management and the strict enforcement of laws and bylaws, both onsite and in the surrounding neighbourhood, are central to its operation.

But let’s be clear. This is a provincially purchased and will be a provincially built facility. Apart from the City rezoning this property (done in 2024), the City has no legal power over this site. Municipalities have no power to deny the province, a higher level of government, this action.

Do you support a safe consumption site?

Yes, but again, the strict enforcement of laws and bylaws in the surrounding neighbourhood is essential. If we want to keep open drug use off our streets, we need to offer addicts a place to use, because addiction will always be with us.

But how will you collect fines from people with no money or assets?

We won’t. But if we say “we’re not going to hold you accountable for your actions, because you’re rich/poor etc”, the whole system falls apart. Everyone must be held accountable for their actions.

And issuing fines, even to those who will never pay, gives the City leverage it does not have if it continues to allow a culture of impunity.