Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro used a provision of the Police Act yesterday to order Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi to come up with a new public safety plan for Alberta’s capital city that would boost the presence of police in the city’s crumbing downtown and on public transit.
“I am writing to you about the extremely concerning and unacceptable levels of crime in Edmonton’s downtown core and the city’s transit systems,” said Mr. Shandro’s letter to the mayor, which went on to list some real problems followed by a huffy defence of United Conservative Party Government mismanagement that has contributed to them.
There’s no question that parts of Edmonton’s downtown are a sketchy wasteland, long in decline and now battered further by the economic fallout of the pandemic.
But it’s hard to imagine what the mayor and council are supposed to do in two weeks to fix deep structural problems that will require big bucks to repair and of which more police patrols are only part of the solution.
“The people of Edmonton deserve better than what this city council is delivering,” Mr. Shandro’s letter tendentiously huffed. Never mind that this city council was elected just seven months ago.
“At this time, I am requesting that you take direct action to address this alarming situation,” Mr. Shandro concluded. “Within the next two weeks, I will require a public safety plan from you that will increase police response to this disorder and ensure members of the public can use Edmonton’s public transit safely.”
So saddle up, city council! Looks like you’ll be patrolling the streets yourselves.
After all, it’s ludicrous to demand that what couldn’t be fixed in two decades under a succession of governments must be fixed in two weeks. For what it’s worth, the UCP Government has had more than three years to work on it, which they started in 2019 by cutting millions out of the police budget by redirecting revenue from traffic tickets to provincial coffers.
Anyone who frequents Edmonton’s downtown – as I do almost every weekday – understands that the declining area’s problems are real and that police are almost never seen there on foot. The situation seems particularly dire after two men in their 60s were stabbed to death last week in a rough area adjacent to the city’s small Chinatown.
But the problems have been growing worse for decades, under a succession of governments. And for what it’s worth, the UCP Government has had more than three years to work on it.
There’s also not much City Council can do about it in the short term because the Edmonton Police Service answers to the Police Commission. So the only way this council has to influence how police do their job for the time being is through the department’s budget. Section 30 (1) of the Police Act, cited by Mr. Shandro in his letter, seems to have been drafted without this administrative reality in mind.
For his part, Mr. Sohi responded calmly.
“The disorder and crime that we’re seeing in our downtown is directly linked to the lack of provincial investments in ending houselessness, the mental health crisis, drug poisoning and addictions crisis,” he told reporters yesterday in response to the minister’s letter.
“Ever since I got elected, I have been raising these issues with the provincial government and asking them to step up to help to deal with them,” he added. “So far, they have neglected these asks, but we have been taking actions on our own.”
It’s likely Mr. Shandro chose this moment to try to pick a fight with Edmonton City Council, instead of working with it to find solutions, because the Edmonton Police Service – despite being the second-highest funded police force in Canada per capita, with only Windsor, Ont., police getting more cash per citizen – has been lobbying heavily for weeks to prevent any limits to its current budget wish list.
Lines of communication between the police and the province seem to run more efficiently nowadays than those between the city and the province. Indeed, a cabinet minister with a beef about a traffic ticket should have no difficulty getting a meeting with the chief of police.
With a provincial government openly more simpatico with the police than a progressive-leaning City Council headed by a former federal Liberal cabinet minister, it was probably inevitable the UCP Government would be tempted to put its oar with council about to consider the EPS budget today.
In other words, this is really just a backhanded way for Mr. Shandro to order a democratically elected council to implement a policy the provincial government wants – a gold-plated police budget at the expense of other effective crime-mitigation measures ideologically opposed by the UCP.
In addition, Mr. Shandro, now in his third cabinet post, may have had additional reasons to pick yesterday to distract Alberta voters.
The Law Society of Alberta picked the day to announce the date for a hearing to decide whether he broke its code of conduct in 2020 when, as minister of health, he stormed into a neighbour’s driveway in 2020 to assail the man, a physician, for sharing a social media meme criticizing his conduct, used personal phone numbers obtained from Alberta Health Services to call doctors at home after hours, and sent an angry email to a woman who had made a critical call to his wife’s business.
The hearing is set to commence on Oct. 17.
Mr. Shandro was also the subject of considerable mockery on social media yesterday for a rambling and inept performance in the Legislature in which he appeared to have been poorly briefed on the downtown stabbings, as well as his similarly incoherent answers to reporters during a press conference about funding for the Crime Stoppers line on Wednesday.
Their boss having stirred things up, Mr. Shandro’s staff told reporters he wouldn’t be available for the last sitting of the Legislature yesterday to answer Opposition questions.
MLAs are not expected to return to the Legislature until October, by which time Jason Kenney may no longer be premier, and Mr. Shandro, whose record in three portfolios has hardly been exemplary, may not be a member of cabinet.
So no one had the opportunity to ask the question in the House former NDP cabinet minister Marg McQuaig-Boyd posed on Twitter yesterday: “Where was Shandro and his Police Act during the convoy at Coutts?”
No wonder the minister blocks so many Albertans on Twitter!
CORRECTION: Funding for the Windsor, Ont., police is the highest per capita in Canada. Incorrect information appeared in an earlier version of this story. DJC
Actually, Edmonton’s Downtown has been bad since the 1990s. Public transit in Edmonton hasn’t been safe long before Armajeet Sohi was mayor of Edmonton. A prime case of this is where an intoxicated young man got on a bus, around 2010, and beat a bus driver very badly. In fact, for multiple times, Edmonton was the murder capital of Canada, and even in the 1990s, this was the case. At one point, Edmonton was nicknamed “Deadmonton”.Tyler Shandro is way off base. You can’t quickly fix a problem that has been there for decades. The contradictory nature of the UCP also rears its ugly presence here. The UCP were the ones that did cut funding to the police in Alberta. Also, the UCP cut funding to community supports, and social services, like A.I.S.H. Somehow, the UCP wants a recently elected mayor to rapidly fix the issues of crime on Edmonton transit, and in downtown. The UCP are becoming a pathetic joke.
And it all started when Ralph Klein began helping the rich steal our oil and tax wealth and stopped funding our municipalities properly like Lougheed did and we are supposed to be dumb enough to accept it.
I find it comical that Shandro would ignore the $9.4 billion his government cut off our corporate taxes to benefit their rich friends and then in true Reform Party fashion tries to blame it on Sohi. How stupid does he think we are. I wouldn’t want him working for me as a lawyer, would you?
Shandro being incoherent? Water is also wet, btw.
Given Shandro’s usual behavior, taking his handling of the Health Ministry portfolio as an example, ole Small Face Slapped on a Fat Head should just tear any agreement that there is such a thing as the City of Edmonton in Alberta. I mean unilaterally tearing up the province’s agreement with its doctors solved every public healthcare issue, right? Just deny that there is such a thing (in any sense) as the City of Edmonton and all the problems related to an entity called Edmonton will simply vanish. No more Edmonton, no more Edmonton problems. That was easy.
And Shandro, now that he is the Atty Gen, can solve all his ethics issues with the Alberta Law Society by abolishing the Society. After all, it’s a centrally controlled organization enforcing professional conduct and that’s Communism. Shandro is a UCP superhero fighting Communism, just like they do in Texas. And God gave Alberta guns, so go git one, darn it!
From the Kenney UCP government that had to beg the feds to fix the alt-right terrorist problem in Coutts caused by the UCP’s alt-right voters.
A bit off topic, but maybe some relevance. I wonder, does it have any relevance to Alberta and it’s populations continued support for self-serving politicians? https://principia-scientific.com/the-5-basic-laws-of-human-stupidity-according-to-cipolla/
I might have been tempted to take the “5 Laws of Stupidity” seriously, but then I noticed how much climate-change denial is featured on the Principia Scientific web site. Then there’s the Covid coverage, and monkeypox “truth” articles…. The site claims to be a scientific publishing organization, but their Peer Review in Open Media procedure (aka PROM) doesn’t seem to require credentials in the science allegedly presented (e.g. a playwright submitting a “paper” on global warming being a Big Lie). They don’t seem to mention the credentials of reviewers, either.
I don’t know, Roger. It looks to me like a thinly-disguised climate-denialist site. In fact, there’s a fairly lengthy entry in the DeSmog database:
https://www.desmog.com/principia-scientific-international/
Given their anti-science stance on global heating (effectively, carbon dioxide is not a greenhouse gas) I wouldn’t be inclined to trust their opinions on anything else, either.
Officers not aircraft. Mental health workers not armoured vehicles. Housing not a fancy gun range.
If nothing else, Mr. Sandro will get a lifetime honorific for all the things he’s done. Or does he get three of them? Does he get to keep his title if he gets disbarred?
From Twitter:
“Perhaps the former health minister could understand the social factors driving crime in our city can’t be fixed with brute force, and in fact are in fact a result of his government’s slashing of social programs.”
Shandro is making a big mistake trying to rile up Sohi. Sohi is a sophisticated and experienced politician who will make short work of Shandro.
Sohi would be wise, in an amusing way, to paraphrase our current Premier’s stock response with reporters and other tormentors, to Shandro – “I reject the premise of your demand”. Ty might as well given them 24 hours to come up with a plan, since he doesn’t really care or understand the problem – this is all simply optics.
This Minister has repeatedly shown that he has risen well above his level of incompetence. He is not alone, as this UCP cabinet couldn’t manage a convenience store effectively. Reality will be smacking him in the next while as his Law Society hearing, and an election, will have something to say about his judgement and effectiveness.
As someone who works in the downtown Edmonton area and spends a lot of time there, I can say there is both some truth and a lot of hyperbole about public safety. For the most part, it is not as bad as all of the hyperbole although there are some parts of downtown I would avoid particularly later in the evening. Mostly, the scary people are homeless and people with mental health or addictions issues who have no place to go and they are not that dangerous. However, it is a very visible sign of how our provincial government has failed terribly in these areas. Edmonton’s downtown and its LRT system should not be Alberta’s largest mental health and addictions outpatient facility. I doubt Mr. Shandro really gets this, most likely he cares not to think about it.
However, the fairly new city council, led by our earnest and well meaning mayor, has also failed to come to grips with all these problems which were inherited from their predecessor council, particularly the growing social disorder in our LRT system. Our LRT stations are not meant to be day centres for homeless or places for drug dealers or potentially violent people to hang out. The so called security people have proved mostly useless in dealing with any serious issues. However, there are signs the city is coming to grips with this, with announced increased policing in the downtown area.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Shandro will regret asking for a plan from the city. If I was writing it, this plan would summarize how these problems relate to provincial mismanagement and under funding of low cost housing, addictions treatment and health care, with a numerical break down of incidents related to these (probably most of them). I would also put specific dollar figures in for what is needed to improve things.
For the most part the UCP has not hidden its neglect of Edmonton. The current problems in downtown Edmonton are a very visible sign of this, which no doubt makes them uncomfortable.
I agree the UCP haven’t hidden their neglect of Edmonton. Neither have they hidden their contempt.
Dave: not having been in Edmonton’s LRT system in a couple of years, I can’t say whether the problem is worse now than it was the last time I was there — might have been 2019. But I was just in Montréal the first weekend of this month, & spent a lot of time on the Metro there, and can attest that there are a lot of apparently unhoused people staying down there in their underground city. Then, when I was in Halifax in February (for a family health crisis), there was a dude hanging out on the Five Corners (Quinpool & Robie) right beside my hotel, doing the squeegee/windshield-washing panhandling strategy. I expect he also was unhoused.
This is a fairly universal problem in big cities and small towns everywhere — except that small towns don’t generally have underground transit hubs — and it isn’t amenable to the kind of back-of-the-napkin quick fixes Shandy seems to want to see from #yegcc. But the unfettered free-market nostrums proposed by conservatives are utterly incapable of solving the problem.
We need:
– publicly-built & operated quality housing, with wrap-around social services on site for those that need them, adjacent to high-service-frequency transit for ready access to employment and health services. We need spaces built on a simple formula: a room for each & every shelter resident & person sleeping rough on the streets, period.
– safe consumption services and a safe drug supply for users, and drug legalization — not mere “decriminalization” — at the personal use level
– social assistance rates that meet the bar of a living income and keeps up with inflation, and provides health needs without cost
– living wage policies in employment standards
– far better access to mental health care, with no waiting time for persons in crisis, and a dedicated mental health EMS system
… and so much more.
Jerry: I agree completely, on all counts. And I recognize that other Canadian cities have similar problems to Edmonton’s. However, as you know, I have worked downtown on Jasper Avenue for more than a decade and made it a practice, weather permitting, to try to walk a mile or so every day at lunchtime. I can tell you that Edmonton’s downtown is dramatically worse in the past two years, no doubt significantly the result of COVID-19, with more lost souls – mentally ill, substance afflicted, and physically ill, possibly suffering from dementia,as well – and almost no one else. It has reached a point, in my opinion, where the downtown is unlikely ever to recover without major intervention on a level a city itself cannot organize or finance, involving all the points you have covered. So this is not just a problem that can be shrugged off as a temporary result of COVID. I am a fifth-degree black belt – granted, a rather elderly one – and I no longer feel safe most days just walking in daylight on Jasper Avenue. Ironically, the only times downtown Edmonton feels safe nowadays is on the nights of Oilers hockey games, when the streets are full of fans going to and from the game. I am not unsympathetic for those who argue that a reduction in the police budget would be a good thing if the money was redirected to other social services of the sort despised by the UCP. However, in my opinion, we do need police in the downtown, on foot, and in significant numbers. Walking a beat, unfortunately, is apparently anathema to modern Canadian police departments. Nevertheless, we need more police officers on the streets and can do without helicopters, armoured personnel carriers and extra secret airplanes. I cannot shake the suspicion that the EPS emptied the streets of downtown of officers as a political tactic to press City Council to maintain or increase their budget. DJC
Perhaps more officers on foot patrol would be a good thing, or perhaps EPS could adopt some form of proactive community outreach/policing. I really don’t know the impact of these kinds of decisions. That said, in many cases, a larger police presence might not always be a good thing. Much depends on how the police are deployed, the training of those officers, and the cultural attitudes of those officers toward the people they encounter on their beats.
I do wholeheartedly agree that EPS does not need some of its more expensive toys and should redirect some of that profligate waste where it will make more of a difference.
Here is an interesting essay that explores some of the issues related to crime rates and policing:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/08/why-crime-isnt-the-question-and-police-arent-the-answer
According to my parents and grandparents, 97th Street has been a cesspool since day 1. DT Edmonton didn’t go downhill until the early 80’s, for a number of reasons:
-LRT construction ripped up Jasper for several years. The inconvenience drove shoppers and residents to look at alternatives (see below). Many never came back
-Heritage Mall opened in 1981. WEM opened in 1981 and expanded in 83 and 85. This set off the “Mall Wars” with Kingsway (closest to DT) also expanding to keep competitive. Edmonton was massively over-retailed. DT shopping continued to suffer
-DT Edmonton demolished much of itself in the late 70’s and early 80’s in preparation for office development that never happened, due to changes in the economy (Calgary cemented its status as the HQ capital of Western Canada, the Provincial Government changed its occupancy – see below)
-the Provincial government grew headcount rapidly during the 70’s. Not only did that growth slow in the 80’s, the Province moved some of its departments to suburban locations like Neil Crawford Centre and Twin Atria. It’s dt footprint shrank
-the early 90’s recession hit Edmonton harder than it did the rest of Alberta for a number of reasons: dependence on government employment, business unfriendly Reimer government (ex. drove Capital City Cable (aka Shaw Communications) out of town due to its conflict of interest in owning EdTel)
-many half way houses opened up east of 97th, congregating social problems in a relatively small area
-half baked dt revitalilization schemes that attracted performative actions from developers did nothing to actually revitallize dt, but made it feel even more like a white elephant (ex. Eaton Centre, 4th floor addition to Edmonton Centre, renovation of HBC building into the Jasper Galleria, podium for Manulife West that only contained a food court, City Centre office tower and mostly vacant mall)
-poor execution in redeveloping former CN and CP railyards: didn’t reconnect the street grids through the former railyards, allowed bleak suburban style strip malls and stucco condos
-the ICE District is still a question mark, but it offers far from an appealing pedestrian environment. The same undersirables who frequented the bus station back in the day are still there.
What has changed is the prevalence of unpredictably aggressive people. Part of this is likely due to the explosion of synthetic drugs in recent years. Part is due to reluctance on the part of law enforcement. I can remember seeing discarded needles dt and Oliver in the early 90’s. I lived in a crap apartment in Oliver where the addicts would shoot up by the dumpsters out back, even at minus 30, but they would mostly stay to themselves.
The situation has changed. I’ve seen some truly frightening occurrences in the LRT stations, such as homeless people starting fires. Calgary’s LRT has suffered much of the same, but on an accelerated timeline. The CTrain was very safe prior to about 2015. Declining ridership, job losses dt and a seeming greater apprehension towards enforcing laws has change that perception. Open drug use, defecation and vandalism is now widespread. Both cities need to get far more aggressive at removing these people or their transit systems will suffer permanent reputational damage. This imperative absolutely rests on City Councils
There’s something about this man’s pronouncements that is akin to a duck farting.
Except, once in a while, duck farting produces something substantial.
Urban decay, crime, poverty, epidemic drug poisoning, and the myriad other issues that cities face are complex problems that can only be addressed and mitigated by a thoughtful, collaborative approach that involves the community and all three levels of government. However, the UCP is perpetually stuck at the top of Dunning-Kruger’s mount stupid, and they appear to have zero awareness of the complexity of these issues and the requisite skills, knowledge, and supports that need to be brought to bear to help resolve them.
All Shantrum and Bumbles know is how to do is bully, lie, score cheap political points, and deflect blame. They have many tools at their disposal to help municipalities (Edmonton is not the only one with these problems), but they can only see a hammer. It appears to be the only tool in Shantrum’s repertoire.
I am not sure what Bumbles and Shandro think they are going to accomplish. They think they can rile people up by mendaciously accusing the Edmonton City Council of “defunding the police”. It might work for their base. However, it certainly won’t work on most Edmonton voters and voters in other urban centers. And it will likely alarm a number of other city councils.
Sohi and the city council need to tread carefully here. If I am interpreting the legislation correctly that Shantrum is overreaching with to punish the City of Edmonton, is it not the case that, if Shantrum is unhappy with the plan, the province can step in and increase the EPS’s budget unilaterally, leaving the city on the hook to make up the cost? Won’t that be fun?
The smart approach might have been to ask the city what the province can do to help with some of the issues Edmonton and other municipalities face. But, these idiots in the UCP are incapable of any kind of approach that might actually have a chance of creating a positive outcome. Instead, they want conflict and distraction. They do not want to solve problems. That is too hard. It is easier to be angry and reactive.
Haha I read about this elsewhere and came here to post about it, can’t say I’m surprised DJC felt it was worth the daily blog. Tyler Shandro makes the boys in short pants look like staid old fuddy-duddies. Impressive combination of shocking incompetence, total lack of self-awareness or shame, and gravel-humping idiocy. The UCP really seems to delight in punishing the city of Edmonton for not liking them in the most transparent and petty ways possible. Not really sure what their endgame is their, but to be fair, I’ve seen no sign that anyone in the UCP knows what the word ‘endgame’ means, let alone has bothered to try to think ahead about anything except their next paycheque.
Hey Edmonton – have you ever thought about seceding from Alberta? No disrespect, but I really think you may be settling for too little in the “province” department. Okay that was kind of a joke, but this is not: The city of Edmonton aims to end racism and poverty and be the safest city in Canada by 2030. Is there a reasonable adult in the country who believes that goal can be accomplished by a city in Alberta? No lie, my first thought when I read the headline was, “Oh I guess they’ll be leaving Alberta then.” It’s the Beaverton article that writes itself!
Neil: I call it YEGxit. DJC
Oh dear! Minister Shandsquatch has gone and put his put his big foot squarely into his pursed pugnacity this time! But that over-the-shoulder look of fear as he hops away on his other foot is unmistakeable: it fairly screams, “ is somebody on my trail?…”
Does this mean that it will be legal to airbnb primary residences only and all non-primary housing province wide caught on airbnb will be confiscated immediately and given to a family waiting for housing. That would make a huge difference, might even end most crime. Wow, the ucpea coming through in the end. Who knew?
So, the great Tyler Shandro, medical expert and practitioner of primal scream therapy, wants Mayor Sohi to fix in 14 days what the Old Tories began to destroy in the late ’90s. (I’m being generous to Ralph Klein’s memory. I remember that police funding was cut by the Klein Klowns in 1997; it was a plank in their election platform, for God’s sake. I don’t recall if they started cutting police funding before ’97—but I know damn well they cut just about everything else!)
Let me suggest a plan for Tyler the Great’s consideration.
1. Immediately restore the per-capita funding of police services throughout Alberta to 1993 levels.
2. Immediately restore per-capita funding of social services to 1993 levels, PLUS increases for inflation and population growth.
3. Immediately approve the city charters for Edmonton and Calgary that the UCP trashed in 2019.
4. Stay the hell out of the way while the city councils begin to fix the problems caused by Con governments, old and new.
5. Keep your mouth shut and your head down until after the Law Society decides whether to slap you down for your deranged screaming abuse at a doctor, for abusing the powers of your office to obtain private phone numbers, and uttering threats to a woman who dared to criticize your wife’s business—and your conflict of interest.
If that’s not satisfactory, here’s a simpler alternative:
1. Quit your job, and resign your post as MLA
2. Move to Saskatchewan—or better yet, the United States.
How is it that Shandro invariably looks vacant or bewildered in his government-sponsored photographs? Is he wondering that this could be the last day in his latest Kinney-sponsored cabinet position or is he considering where the appropriate title of “honourable” could possibly be placed before or after a name like Shandro now that the UCP have shamelessly introduced Bill 1 .
https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/bill-passed-to-give-alberta-s-cabinet-ministers-permanent-honourable-designation-1.5919894
‘The Peter Principle’ [Peter, LJ:1969] asserts that in a hierarchy, employees tend to be promoted from positions of competence to positions of incompetence…the ‘over one’s head’ position. There is considerable evidence that principals within neoliberal/libertarian candidates for government, lie and cheat to attain power and once installed, continue the same behaviours, sweetened by access to taxpayers dollars and soured by ideologically driven fealty to Dunning-Kruger.
There are too many decision/ edicts/ pronouncements made by mendacious and sneaky populist politicians, often, lately, on first days of long weekends, to list here but the whole tenor of this company of ‘honourable’ and entitled persons has been repeated with the ferocity and destructiveness of an Alberta windstorm: some include, overreach and defunding Alberta postsecondary education and Alberta schools; destruction/undermining (for profit) of Alberta’s health care system; callous, if not criminal, negligence causing pandemic death and mahem, amongst them.
Let us not forget too, those decisions to reintroduce coal mining and consequent poisoning of mountain-derived drinking water to southern Alberta and into our eastern neighbours and the theft of water from the hydrologic system. There is plenty of incompetence to go around for these idiologues.
Dale McFee, and likely most of the top brass of the EPS need to be fired, they are holding downtown and transit hostage with their lack of enforcement, they obviously have the numbers and the money, this is gangsterism.
In addition to their refusal to do their jobs, the corruption that has been revealed this year alone should be enough to clean house.
Fire McPhee, stop letting police dictate the terms of their contracts, they are disgusting thugs.
Here is some good information on the EPS that city councilor Michael Janz put out in response to some earlier misdirection by Minister Shandro and EPS Chief McFee:
https://twitter.com/michaeljanz/status/1529558736653930496?s=20&t=H8H1hzseF0DPj1zWx_yTFA
One thing I would add is that the police have long ago figured out how to manipulate and even determine crime statistics and what crimes get reported by the media. This is part of a strategy to ensure that they can maintain and increase their budgets and power from year to year, despite actual, falling (in some cases) crime rates. What we have seen recently in Edmonton is a clumsy and transparent attempt to control and shape the “crime” narrative (copaganda) to cajole city council into increasing the proposed EPS budget, to make up for the actual defunding of the police by the province.
Here is another instructive Twitter thread on how widespread copaganda in the US is becoming:
https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1522231336261632000
I would be surprised if EPS and other provincial police departments do not allocate significant resources to PR.