THUNDER BAY -- Keith Hobbs says he wants to get to the root of the city’s crime problems.
The mayor admitted at the Community Safety Forum last week his campaign promise to clean up the streets of Thunder Bay has been an abject failure. That forum was to address increasing safety concerns regarding a pair of high-profile cases involving the Aboriginal community.
Following the forum, Hobbs met with Amy Siciliano, coordinator for the Thunder Bay Crime Prevention Council, to discuss forming a special task force.
That task force would look at short-term solutions for the city’s violent crime.
“We have to identify who are doing the crimes and why they are doing the crimes,” Hobbs said Monday.
“We have to get into demographics. I want everything on the table. I don’t consider it profiling criminals. I think if there’s a segment of the population that are committing more crime then we have to get to the root of the problem and why that is happening. I don’t want anything hidden. We have to get it all out.”
Hobbs said he and members of the crime council met again on Friday along with the city’s chief of police. He said they also want to invite representatives from Nishnawbe Aski Nation to be a part of that task force.
He said they have a group already working on the situation but nothing official has been done yet. Some of those individuals were from the Thunder Bay Shelter House and the Drug Prevention Strategy.
“We haven’t even given it a name yet. I was thinking of ‘mayor’s task force’ or ‘crime prevention council task force’,” he said.
“Our goal is to find solutions for the violence we’ve seen in this community. If you look at the Kitchener, Ont. model it took them 20 years. We can’t wait 20 years.”
A meeting will be held Tuesday to discuss the events that took place at the safety forum and what the next steps will be.
