The City of Prince George is making some forward movement on offsetting costs they see as a provincial responsibility.
At their regular meeting last night, two resolutions were brought forward;
A) to see some of the proceeds from revenues police seize, like drug busts, come back to the community to pay for the costs of RCMP’s work
B) to gain financial aid from the province to go towards cleaning up needles and other paraphernalia used in harm reduction initiatives.
For the first resolution, Councillor Kyle Sampson told MyPGNow that there are proceeds of crime that can go back into the community for crime prevention or community policing initiatives but it’s a very small and menial amount.
“My focus is that policing costs are something that a city incurs but we don’t see any of the proceeds of the revenues that they apprehend, or from the work that they do.”
He said confiscated money goes back to the provincial government and mentioned a bust from April, the largest under the Cannabis Act in Prince George to date, where police seized guns, cannabis, and more than half a million dollars in cash.
“There was a ton of work that went into that, our police service puts hundreds of hours of work and resources into those kinds of investigations, and they seize that money through their operations, which are paid for by us.”
The second resolution was brought forward by Councillor Brian Skakun, who was unavailable for comment, but Sampson was able to explain.
“Harm reduction is very important in a community, and everyone’s got different views and opinions on how that gets done, but when it comes down to it, the paraphernalia that ends up on our streets, alleys, and parks needs to be better managed.”
“Really, harm reduction is under the responsibility of the provincial government, but the mess that comes from it – there’s no proper channels to deal with it and it’s falling on the municipality.”
They’re looking for support from the provincial government to set aside funding for communities across the province to offset the costs of the burden of the paraphernalia.
“We’re looking for a way to keep our community safe and clean and presentable,” said Sampson.
They will be looking for support from other communities of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities before trying to bring the resolutions to the province.