In a bid to face a number of issues head-on, politicians, police, doctors, and Crown Counsel, among others, will be attending panel discussions on Thursday to try and find solutions to social major issues.
It’s no secret B.C. has been struggling for years with a housing crisis and an unregulated toxic drug crisis.
Former MLA and current Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog will be at the event organized by Save Our Street Coalition, and he tells 1130 NewsRadio that the public has been loud and clear — they want the problems addressed.
“The mental health, addictions, trauma, and brain injury crisis manifesting itself in homelessness and a lot of petty crime to feed drug habits is just way beyond being tolerable for many British Columbians,” said Krog. “Many of us have friends, family, we know people who are in the streets and people want it fixed.”
Krog explains the goal of the event isn’t just to talk, but to find solutions.
“The fixes are pretty basic. Firstly, the government needs to acknowledge the seriousness of the issue both at a human and political level. Secondly, money and a plan for the bricks and mortar because we lack the actual facilities, buildings, housing, shelters — all of the things that are needed,” he stated.
“It needs to recognize and announce the money for the training, for our colleges and universities because we have a great lack of people with the skills, the patience necessary to deal with people who are suffering from the mental health, addictions, trauma, and brain injury crisis.”
Krog believes years of “failed social and health policy” have led to the impacts the province sees today.
“We cannot let this tide of human misery continue,” he said. “There’s no question, we have reached a crisis point in British Columbia and indeed in this country … where the numbers are shocking in comparison to what they were 30 and 40 and 50 years ago.”
“The sense of fear, frustration, anger, the sadness — as I remind everybody, these aren’t people who’ve been dropped from an alien world. These are the sons and daughters, the cousins, the parents of people in our society who are looking for help for those they love.”
In September last year, Statistics Canada data showed the overall per capita crime rate, based on police reports, was down in B.C. by about 3 per cent since 2018. The violent crime rate often cited by business leaders, shows it was up by more than 32 per cent since 2018, having spiked sharply in 2019, but it has been mostly unchanged since then. Vancouver and Victoria have both seen a 9 per cent rise in violent crime, per capita, since 2018, StatCan data showed.
As of early November 2024, police in Vancouver shared that violent offences were down 6.6 per cent from the previous year; property crimes were down 10.7 per cent; and calls for service were down 0.4 per cent. Police say there were 12 “culpable” homicides in Vancouver in 2023; in 2024, there were only nine. Meanwhile, police response time in Vancouver increased by 0.8 per cent — five seconds slower than the same reporting period in 2023.
As for Surrey, numbers released in May of last year showed that violent crime reduced by 14 per cent and property crime decreased by 13 per cent between 2022 and 2023.
Krog adds the province has been slowly stepping up, but it needs to act urgently to address the continued concerns.
“The government has announced some steps recently that are seen as very positive including securing involuntary care … but we have a long ways to go. We need to get on with it. It’s been getting worse, not better.”
1130 asked Krog for a timeline he’d like to see things improve, however, he didn’t provide one. He admits another factor in all of this that needs to be addressed is the slow justice system.
“That is a reality. It takes a long time to get matters dealt with and, of course, when you’re dealing with people with serious mental health, addiction, trauma, and brain injury issues, to some extent I think … people are being left in between the two systems. The justice system … and on the other hand, some of these folks are so troublesome and so dangerous, the health care system doesn’t want to have them around,” he said.
“The perception is people are getting away with things and they need treatment and they’re not getting it. That we are unsafe, and whether we’re safe or not, it doesn’t matter, people feel unsafe.”
With files from the Canadian Press and Charles Brockman.