Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, seen in the House of Commons last week, says the gang violence in Surrey, B.C. is ‘a serious problem.’Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale says he's willing to expedite more Mounties to Surrey, as B.C.'s second-largest city grapples with the "serious problem" of gang violence linked to dozens of shootings this year.
Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner recently said the city would be getting 16 additional Mounties – on top of 100 officers the city secured over the past year – to help deal with crime in her growing city, southeast of Vancouver. The RCMP say there have been 40 incidents involving shots fired in the city, largely linked to gang conflict. There were 60 such shootings in Surrey last year.
As Surrey's leaders tell the story of a vibrant, prosperous community growing by about 1,000 residents a month, they are also grappling with unpredictable violence the RCMP have linked to young drug dealers with poor impulse control and a tendency to settle their differences with firearms. At least 12 people have been injured and one killed since January.
"It is a serious problem that raises concerns about public safety, and security" Mr. Goodale said Wednesday in Vancouver, after receiving a briefing from the RCMP in Surrey and meeting with Ms. Hepner earlier in the day.
Mr. Goodale said the 16 officers have not yet "officially arrived" but he expects they will be deployed shortly. "We'll respond constructively to that as we always have in making sure Surrey has the personnel to deal with the issues on the street."
The minister said the situation is a burden on the city.
"People should not underestimate the debilitating effect [the conflict] has on the life and the spirit of a community. At the same time, there's a huge amount of effort being poured [in by] the police and the municipal authorities and provincial government agencies working to change the paradigm," Mr. Goodale said.
The public-safety minister also noted the federal government is working on a guns-and-gangs task force, which will require a budgetary allocation of $100-million a year, to help municipalities across Canada take on gangs. The idea was a Liberal platform commitment in the last federal election, and work is under way to enact it.
While Mr. Goodale said every community will be free to use the resources as it sees fit, he thought community policing a prudent course. "That does make a tangible difference," he said.
Mr. Goodale said action is needed for Toronto, and smaller rural Canadian communities including Williams Lake, B.C., which have been dealing with guns and violence, but added, "There's no perfect cookie-cutter answer that will work everywhere."
Last week, Ms. Hepner reflected on the gang conflicts in Surrey in part of her State of the City speech – an annual opportunity to talk about ambitions and issues in the city that was otherwise focused on such matters as managing growth.
Ms. Hepner said that despite a declining trend in property crime and violent crime, more work needs to be done to end violence associated with illegal drugs.
"Unfortunately, as good as the latest statistics and trends might be, we all know that a single shot fired by a gang member shatters our image of public safety and pushes any otherwise positive trends to the back pages of our newspapers," Ms. Hepner told hundreds of members of the business community, city council and other Surrey leaders.
"It means we need to come down hard on those who show such a complete disregard for our neighbourhoods."
She said, echoing the views of the RCMP, that the gang issue is larger than one neighbourhood or city, and outlined a response that has included more police, the hiring of the city's first director of public safety, and providing police greater access to traffic-control cameras as a means of gathering evidence.
The city has also stepped up efforts to reach at-risk youth, expanded the RCMP unit for school-liaison work and held at least 20 public forums.
Ian Bailey