March 22, 2004
Public Safety and Crime
Private Member's Statement
R. Lee: I rise today to speak on a matter of crime and public safety. This is an ongoing concern to my constituents in Burnaby and to British Columbians overall. The incidences of grow ops, car thefts, burglaries and speeding are constantly endangering the safety and livelihood of people in B.C. In a recent survey Surrey was rated the worst city for car thefts of all the English-speaking cities in the world. The drug crime arrest rate in Surrey has more than doubled, as well, from 247 incidents per 100,000 people in 1998 to 531 in 2002, according to a recently released survey of police arrest reports by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, a division of Statistics Canada.
We have seen an escalating number of shootings, all the while the police have seen a significant increase in the number of guns found in the streets. Grow ops are an ever-present reality. It has been mentioned before that grow ops cost this province around $50 million annually in stolen energy and power alone. Drug trafficking, especially the smuggling of B.C. marijuana to our neighbours south of the border, results in harder drugs like cocaine coming back to B.C.
Let's look at my riding in the city of Burnaby. According to preliminary statistics, homicide, murder, sexual and non-sexual assaults and other violent crimes are down. This is obviously a positive trend that is a result of preventative actions, and I hope the trend will continue in the future.
However, what's alarming is the significant jump in burglary. Preliminary statistics from the Burnaby police services indicate that in 2003, business break-ins are up 32 percent, residential break-ins are up 24 percent and motor vehicle thefts are up by 8 percent.
Aside from hurting victims financially and emotionally, burglary is now resulting in businesses being unable to get insurance due to repetitive break-ins, forcing business owners to erect gates, guards and other self-insurance methods. This is an ever-present reality that hurts the positive perspective of public safety.
I am pleased to see that this government has recognized the problem of crime and public safety. Not only did this government recognize the problem, but we have also started taking measures to solve it. We are committed to enhancing safety on roads and streets across British Columbia through the effective use of enforcement, education and engineering.
The creation of the integrated organized crime unit is a great step towards combatting organized crime and the drug trade in British Columbia. By creating this innovative agency, we have streamlined the number of processes, reducing overlap, eliminating duplication and freeing up to $4 million in additional funds.
I am also looking forward to hearing more about improving safety on such issues as impaired driving, speeding, SkyTrain and other traffic safety. In 2002 over 450 people were killed on B.C. roads, with more than 80,000 injured. With that in mind, street racing is an ever-growing trend that often results in tragic results. Unfortunately, street racers not only endanger their lives, but often they endanger the lives of innocent bystanders as well. The financial costs for vehicle-related accidents are estimated at $2 billion annually, not to mention the pain and suffering of the victims.
Impaired drivers cause about 28 percent of vehicle-related deaths. The city of Burnaby has seen a 6 percent increase in recorded impaired-driving incidents just over the last year. It is important to re-evaluate our impaired driving penalties, finding more effective ways of prevention and penalization. This is especially important amongst our teens. In 2001 close to one-quarter of our province's alcohol-related collisions that resulted in death or injury were committed by persons between 16 and 21 years of age.
SkyTrain safety has been a rising issue in my community as well. It is often perceived to be dangerous to travel on it during certain times. I have organized a public forum in my constituency to discuss the issue of public safety on the SkyTrains and around the stations.
The TransLink security force working in the SkyTrain area is concerned that it is not equipped well enough to suppress criminal activities in order to protect the public. I understand that we don't need another fully independent, equipped police force to patrol the public transportation facilities. However, better coordination between security forces can certainly help reduce crime and increase public safety.
It is important for the B.C. government to address the various issues of public safety. These issues bring a lot of emotional, physical and financial strain on individuals, organizations and the government. We must consult with the stakeholders to create new, innovative and relevant solutions to get rid of crime and increase the safety on our roads, in our homes and in our workforce.
There are a lot of questions that require answers, and I know this government is working very hard to reduce crime and increase public safety.
Hon. R. Coleman: Thank you to the member for bringing this again to the attention of the Legislature with regard to the issues they're facing in his community in all aspects of crime and pressures with regard to some of those things. I'm going to address a few of them in the limited time I have.
I would first like to start out, though, by saying that we have a tendency, when we deal with crime stats, to pick out a community and say it is the crime capital of something or the crime capital of something else. The Vancouver Board of Trade called Vancouver, a while back, the property crime capital of Canada, second only to Miami in North America. Somebody else recently, as the member noted, called Surrey the worst for car thefts in all the English-speaking cities of the world.
I'm loath to enter into either one of those discussions in singling out a community when we have a region. We have the region of the lower mainland of British Columbia, in which Surrey is one of the cities and Vancouver is another one of the cities. People have to understand that crime moves across those borders, back and forth, depending on how your enforcement is working in one jurisdiction versus the other.
For example, on auto theft we have a bait car program we put into place in Vancouver with a huge advertising impetus along with the bait car program in cooperation with police and ICBC. We saw auto theft go down by 7 percent in that jurisdiction. At the same time we saw an increase in auto theft in other jurisdictions, because as you push down one bubble, oftentimes it pops up somewhere else.
Rather than sit back and say that this community is worse than that community, we took the initiative two weeks ago basically with the members from the lower mainland, particularly the members from Surrey. They said: "You know, we'd like to see the bait car program expanded to the entire lower mainland." We've expanded it now to 16 communities across the lower mainland so we can deal with this issue globally.
What happens oftentimes is that people get parochial about their communities and think that crime in their community is okay. They think their stats are lower and therefore it's somebody else's problem. It isn't; it is an integrated relationship. A criminal doesn't know any borders with regard to where they're going to do their crime. If we were only to concentrate on Surrey, push down on auto crime singularly in Surrey and leave no other community with the bait car program, chances are their auto theft would go up and Surrey's would go down. Somebody would say: "Why aren't you doing something in this community now?"
I think we have to be prepared, as we look at crime, to look at it in a global way, to create the integration and the innovation and data management so we can actually deal with crime globally and not work on singular communities as we try and do that. It's important for us to do that because as the member says, there are issues within his community, and those same issues transcend to others, whether it be street racing or issues with regard to impaired driving or traffic safety. Rather than take an approach where we have said we will just send some money to individual police departments, what we've done is take the money from ICBC that would normally be spent on those programs, and we're creating an integrated traffic unit in the lower mainland and putting additional police officers on the street to help those communities to address the issues.
The member also brought up the issue of SkyTrain policing and security. I will tell the member today that we are very close to actually finding a long-term solution to that. We will be announcing it when it is appropriate, once all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed, as we move forward to address the concerns that TransLink and law enforcement have with regard to how it can be integrated into a relationship. We think we have those solutions, and we think very shortly we will be in a position to deal with that across the communities in the lower mainland so we can deal with that sort of thing.
I think the member is right about integration and amalgamation, and I'm glad he mentioned the Organized Crime Agency, the new organized crime unit that's going to allow us to have $4 million more to put into organized crime. Our integrated homicide unit is now one of the most successful in the western world with regard to its solve rates, and it proves that integration on that aspect works.
The message goes back from this member to his community and to his local government that this is a good thing. As we move on now, we want to move on to an integrated sex offender team. We want to move on with issues in and around Internet luring of young children. All of these things are integrated relationships that have to take place, and people have to take down the borders between communities in order for us to accomplish that across an entire region or across an entire province.
We're gifted in this province by the fact that the leadership of policing actually sees these long-term solutions and are prepared to work with them. The key for us as people in public life, both ourselves and people in local government and at the federal government, frankly, is to understand that we need to give the seamless integration of policing across regions so we can fight the serious aspects of crime together. It is absolutely critical that we do that without saying we're different, without saying we won't participate, because the future of policing is actually in a cooperative relationship across jurisdictions, across borders by all participants.
R. Lee: I would like to thank the Solicitor General, the minister responsible for public safety, for his thoughtful responses to the points I raised. We live in the beautiful province of British Columbia, the most liveable region in the world. If we want to preserve its good reputation, we must protect the public so that we all live in a safe environment as well.
Part of the increases in drug-related crimes, I believe, is the result of stepped-up enforcement, the deployment of more police forces to enforce the laws. This could be a positive development. I agree with the Solicitor General that the government has taken many steps to address the problem of grow ops, car thefts, burglary and speeding, but still more could be done.
I would like to comment on the efforts of the father of Jimmy Ng, who was killed by a speeding vehicle. Mr. Ng has taken up the challenge to educate young people on driving safety and to advocate for healthier penalties for traffic violations. I also notice that parents are also taking initiatives across Canada to fight back. The I Promise program encourages young drivers to sign an agreement to drive safely. The newly emerging Tell their Mom program asks the public to report impaired drivers whose parents would have their vehicles registered in the database. I believe when drivers, parents, schools, the public and the government work together, we can help reduce accidents and save many lives.
I appreciate the opportunity to raise these questions and issues so close to our hearts. I hope that our legislative and judiciary systems are constantly improved to combat crimes and to protect the public, so that we can all live happily in a safe environment.
