Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) International Conference on Street Gangs

Remarks made by
The Honourable Stockwell Day
Minister of Public Safety

Montréal, Québec
October 29, 2007
As delivered

It's a great honour to be here among the men and women who do so much to keep our country, our citizens and our streets safe. You are willing to do that at no small risk, all the while knowing the challenges.

I also want to wish a warm welcome to those who have travelled here from other countries. I understand there are participants from Belgium, France, the United States and other countries as well.

We have challenges in our country; but when you hear about other countries, you realize that while our challenges are great—in some places of the world, they are even greater. I feel good about a country that is as safe and secure as ours. You have much to do with that.

In Ottawa this afternoon, I had the honour of some private time with the Dalai Lama who is visiting here. I was able to contemplate on very peaceful things but also on the reality that there are always challenges to the peace that we seek and that we enjoy.

It's essential that all levels of government play a role in keeping Canadians safe. We want to work together to ensure that you can walk down the street without fear and that those who pose a threat and a menace will face consequences.

Tackling crime and keeping Canadians safe is one of our priorities. And that's why we have approached the whole area of safety and security in a very vigorous way for almost two years now. We started off by making a commitment for one thousand more RCMP employees across the country.

We have also committed alongside the solicitors general and attorneys general in various provinces and territories to add 2,500 municipal officers through a cost-shared program. We've been meeting with many individuals and groups at the provincial, municipal and policing levels on this.

You are probably aware that we have done significant things at our borders as well. We are in the process of hiring 400 more border officers and having our border officers trained to be equipped with side arms. Already, the first graduates of those classes are out there on the job at the busier ports of entry right now.

We have made this commitment and we understand that the visibility and the presence of more officers in itself has a positive effect on our streets. We are going to continue with that commitment.

When it comes to the area of child exploitation, we've increased just over this last year an extra $6 million on top of what we already resourced to the Child Exploitation Centre.

When it comes to finding out what are the best practices of policing and what are the best types of equipment that can be made available to officers, we've established a research centre that all police agencies will be able to use and consult, and through which they can share information so that best practices and best types of equipment are thoroughly researched. This way, officers will be best equipped as possible to do the job that they need to do.

We have made a commitment that at our borders there would be Integrated Border Teams to work with officers from the United States to address people who are a menace but also have protected borders where travellers can travel easily.

When it comes to our streets, we want to look at the reasons as to why we have this phenomenon of street gangs. And the reasons are many. We want to make sure that our communities are equipped with the resources to deal with what we are seeing happening on our streets. And we are so pleased that people like you have the expertise and also the heart and the dedication to try to get at the preventative side of things, but also down to the root causes of this phenomenon that seems to be growing.

You may have seen the Statistics Canada numbers that indicate that crime is going down everywhere. That is attributable, in many ways, to the good work that you and your comrades are doing. But some areas are going up and it is an area of concern, and we're disturbed by some of what we see.

Many areas of violent crime are increasing—aggravated crime, aggravated assaults, attempted murders. And for last year, we're seeing the highest rate of young people charged with homicide that we've seen since they started gathering statistics in that particular category as far back as 1961.

We have some real concerns. Much of it, of course, is tied into and involved with drug activity and the drug trade.

We have to, on the one hand, call on the enforcement side or "the long arm of the law." And on the other side, we have to have "the open arms of the community." We need both.

I was in Winnipeg just about a month ago with our Prime Minister as we announced our $64-million National Anti-Drug Strategy. A third of those resources are committed to the enforcement side but two-thirds are committed to prevention, awareness and treatment.

We also have a number of programs under the National Crime Prevention Program where we're making $20 million available across the country to groups that work at the local level who understand what's going on in their own communities. If they have programs that they can show that work, then we want to be able to do what we can to fund those programs. That's in part because these are the vital areas, these are the programs where police officers, social agencies and other community groups are working together identifying in their own areas the hot spots, the problem spots.

Programs are looking at prevention and working with vulnerable young people, families at risk and the Aboriginal community. Across the board, we are taking a very aggressive approach.

We will package that all up, make that available with the final piece of the puzzle being the legislative agenda. And we have heard from police officers and leaders in the community in policing and in safety and security for years on a number of key areas. And you are probably aware that we tabled a number of bills in the House of Commons over the last year and a half.

We have a concern about the ability to classify somebody as a dangerous offender. And right now, we want to have legislation that after a person has committed a certain number of serious grievous offences that they are the ones who have the burden of responsibility to prove that they should be walking around free instead of remaining incarcerated.

That's the broad approach that we are taking on the resource side and on the legislative side. Then we zero in to the specific programs that need to be honed and developed and resourced. We're talking about specific programs like the ones you're dealing with in terms of looking at our street gangs.

Who knows what goes through the mind and the heart of a young person who feels so rejected and alienated that they'd be willing to join a street gang because they feel more acceptance there than they do at home or among peers at school? Again, there's the balance. There has to be the responsibility. There have to be consequences for improper action but we need to zero in on the root causes and how we can prevent those things.

I wish you the best in what you are doing. I congratulate you on being willing to commit yourselves to making our streets safer and increasing the possibilities that young people will make the right choices. As we know, it only takes one or two steps in the wrong direction and a person's life can wind up in a very different stage, in a very different state.

You face a difficult task. Every day when you go to work there are things you face that nobody else has to face and you do it with devotion. You do it with courage and you do it because you know you're making a difference and you truly are, and we thank you for that.

Thank you.