In the previous issue of Short Takes, we saw how geopolitical developments can have an impact on our lives in Canada. Of course, local developments are more impactful in this regard – and the policies and actions of municipalities are as local as it can get. Before I talk about today’s collection of municipal stories, allow me to point out that there is a widespread tendency to treat developments in one municipality as being irrelevant elsewhere, possibly based on the assumption that its effects are of limited geographic scope. But I believe that the practices at one place in Canada have the potential to spread to other parts of Canada, and therefore we should try to keep abreast of what is going on at the municipal level nationally. Here is today’s sampling:
1. The politician-bureaucrat-businessman nexus:
In a report at Simcoe.com that would certainly have been characterized as ‘explosive’ if it had been in relation to goings-on at the provincial or federal level, Brett Glover revealed a particular instance of the tightly knit networks of politicians, bureaucrats and business people in Barrie, ON. As happens often in government functioning, a policy stemming from compassionate tendencies appears to have been hijacked to serve vested interests. The subheading of the report sums it up neatly: “City staff wrote chamber of commerce letter endorsing plan that triggered push-back from advocacy groups”. The plan, outlined in a motion that passed unanimously in May, was in relation to dealing with the homelessness crisis in the city.
Part of the crisis emanates from the fact that prisoners from the nearby Central North Correctional Centre in Penetanguishene, ON are dropped off in downtown Barrie (one presumes, after their release). The measures contained in the motion include: prohibiting the use or distribution of tents or tarps in public spaces without a permit, prohibiting payments to panhandlers on city streets, intersections and highway ramps, banning food and grocery distribution in public spaces without permission, and curbing prisoner drop-offs in downtown Barrie.
It is unclear as to why the city staff would need to be involved in drafting the response of the chamber of commerce in these matters, but maybe it is such a longstanding tradition of ‘coordination’ on the two sides that nobody thought it was odd in this instance.
2. Consequences of ghettoization:
This one is from my own city of Brampton, ON, and frankly, it comes to me as no surprise. In fact, more than 3 years ago, I pointed out in my article ‘Windward Islands’ that for a very large proportion of immigrants, their relationship with the State in the country of their origin was one of antagonism, if not outright hostility. This has been reiterated in a recent report in Brampton Guardian:
“Historically, South Asians tend to view the police with suspicion because of corruption in the South Asian police forces abroad”.
There is, therefore, a new initiative to ‘build trust between the police and the South Asian communities’. Notice the plural – ‘communities’. Perhaps inadvertently, the writer of the report, Alexandra Shimo, has hit the nail on the head: ‘South Asian’ is not a single community, but rather, is a catch-all term applied to a wide array of ethnic communities. The South Asian gentleman quoted in the piece, one Kurian Prakkanam, is president of Brampton Malayalee Samajam – Malayalee is the specific ethnicity from the state of Kerala in southern India, with its own language, script and culture, and the word ‘Samajam’ means ‘society’. If he were to speak in the Malayalee language, a vast number of South Asians wouldn’t be able to understand a word of it.
The recommendation by one Dr. Maher Hussain of South Asian Canadians Health and Social Services is to have ‘more translators in the police who can speak South Asian languages like Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil and Urdu’. In my view, this is exactly backwards.
First off, in a city where more than half of the population is South Asian, why is it that there is less than proportionate desire in that community for joining the police force? Secondly, instead of making the police force climb the Tower of Babel, why don’t we focus on the fact that so many immigrants cannot communicate in English? Sadly, our experiment in multiculturalism has ended up in ghettoization of our communities.
3. Delaying the inevitable:
The city of Surrey, B.C. has filed a petition in the British Columbia Supreme Court, challenging the province’s order to transition away from the RCMP to a municipal police force. As reported by CBC, Mayor Brenda Locke says that “the transition to a municipal force will be too costly for residents of her city”.
My view is that as the population of Canada increases, more an more cities will need to start thinking about this ‘transition away from RCMP’. The benefits of having a local police force that (hopefully) has a better connection with the community that it serves are obvious.
Over here in Ontario, Mississauga and Brampton are served by Peel Regional Police currently – but as the Region is scheduled to be dismantled by 2026, both cities will have to start organizing for having their own police force – and how the two forces will coordinate between themselves, given the close proximity of the two cities. These will be the challenges at the municipal level in the years to come, and these challenges are better taken head-on. The political reflex of kicking the can down the road is not going to serve Canadians well.
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