Community Safety - Election 2024
Providing a safe community in which to live, work, and play is central to any municipality’s mission. For decades, Moncton has offered that. But with rapid population growth and an alarming increase in homelessness and poverty, the city is struggling to maintain that image.
According to Statistics Canada data, Moncton had the third highest police-reported crime rate in Canada in 2021 – trailing only Kelowna, BC and Lethbridge, AB. We also finished fourth in the crime severity index. Codiac RCMP will confirm they are battling historic high incidence of street drugs.
The City has received a sharp increase in the number of calls from concerned citizens and business owners over the level of crime in Moncton. They are equally besieged by complaints about the actions of some homeless individuals and the image this is giving our city.
This amount of municipal money spent on community safety has skyrocketed in the past three years:
- Moncton’s share of Codiac RCMP funding: increased 40 per cent
- amount spent on community officers: increased 230 per cent
What Moncton needs
1 - Changes to the Police Act to empower community safety officers to carry out high priority, low-risk enforcement of by-laws and select provincial statutes.
2 – Change needed to the judicial system to more adequately respond to chronic reoffenders who suffer from mental health and addiction issues (i.e. establishment of a Mental Health Court in Moncton with the requisite referral services to divert repeat mental health and addiction offenders.)
3 - Better rehabilitation and exit strategies from provincial correctional facilities. Inmates sentenced to federal penitentiaries have access to job skilling, GED programs, and transition support once they end their terms. There are little to no programs available for those individuals sentenced to two years less a day to provincial facilities. These individuals are simply released onto our streets and are much more likely to reoffend.