Canadians need to feel safe for local communities to prosper, drive economic prosperity and attract business. By building stronger partnerships and implementing smart reforms, we can ensure our communities remain safe while navigating the rising costs of emergency services.
To keep our communities safe and manage rising costs, we need everyone—local, provincial, and federal governments—to work together. Amid rising rates of violent crime, property theft, and issues linked to mental health, it's more important than ever to address these challenges and ensure the safety of our residents so that our communities can thrive.
Together, we can focus on:
- Fixing the bail system: Repeat offenders pose significant risks to our communities. We need to make evidence-based changes to ensure the bail system helps keep communities safe and deals with repeat offenders properly while keeping the courts moving.
- Supporting the RCMP: RCMP recruitment and retention remain an issue in many communities. High vacancy rates and staffing gaps hinder delivery of essential policing across Canada, including in rural, remote and northern communities. Municipalities must be engaged in meaningful consultation on the costs of RCMP contract policing services to ensure they reflect a community’s ability to pay.
- Easing the financial load on municipalities: Communities are spending a lot on public safety, and they need a fiscal framework that matches today’s needs to better handle those expenses.
- Working together to tackle crime: Many Canadians are worried about crime affecting their lives. Police and first responders are dealing with challenges like more violent crimes and issues related to drugs. We need all levels of government to address these problems together.
- Improving mental health and substance use care: By boosting community support services, we can reduce the burden on police so they can concentrate on the most urgent safety issues.
As part of a National Prosperity Partnership, municipalities are committed to working closely with the federal, provincial and territorial governments, to improve public safety and emergency services in communities across Canada. This teamwork is vital to ensuring our emergency services are ready to handle any crisis, keeping Canadians safe and secure.
