The NPA’s Comprehensive Public Safety Plan – Your Safety is Our Priority
Ensure there is crisis-level leadership on public safety at city hall.
Ensure that treatment and prevention services are provided in addition to harm reduction, including models where those receiving harm reduction would also be moving forward in a treatment process. Harm reduction by itself does not work and is not compassionate care.
Ensure our neighbourhoods are safe by supporting and working with our excellent progressive police service. Accountability for those who victimize residents of Vancouver.
Ensure we communicate that it is not compassionate to think harm reduction and unacceptable SRO housing by themselves are helping those in need in our society. The NPA will provide a holistic approach, which was an NPA foundational policy: Harm Reduction; Prevention; Treatment; and Enforcement of Civil Behavior.
Consult with communities and provide services instead of just shifting the problem to new areas of the city which is what happened with the relocation of the residents of Strathcona Park.
Ensure we have safe and clean streets, parks and well-functioning community facilities.
Work with other levels of government to increase mental health workers.
Require BC Housing to commit specific resources for tenants with complex care needs prior to project approval.
Require social service agencies that receive over $100,000 in government funding within the city to come together to review their effectiveness and increase collaboration.
Ensure the police service has the resources to do its job to the best of its abilities.
Ensure accountability on service providers in non-supportive housing models.
Re-evaluate the process of the Downtown Community Court to mitigate the “revolving door” of petty crime offences.
Reinstate the School Liaison Program.
Where necessary seek Federal funding to enhance the Organized Crime Section’s ability to respond.
Seek Federal funding to increase integrated specialized teams that would be responsible for downtown public safety and separate from the already stretched divisional resources.
Ensure front-line police officers are not tied to unreasonable wait times for hospital admissions.
Support strategic initiatives that overwhelm criminals legally and financially. (Mr. Big and sting operations) In particular, using tactics established in case law through R v Christou and Wright (UK).
Aggressively pursue the use of No-go’s on violent offenders, sex offenders, IPV offenders and child procuring offences. We will seek a blanket NO GO city of Vancouver with the usual limitations.
We would seek an expansion of use of crime proceeds with some or all of the revenue going into policing initiatives.