Province should fund crime reduction effort, police chief says

Thunder Bay’s police chief wants the province to fund a new initiative to reduce crime in this area’s communities.

The crime rate was one of the issues discussed at a meeting today between police services boards and chiefs from across the Northwest. For the past two days they've met in Thunder Bay to discuss the policing issues they're facing.

Thunder Bay Police Chief Bob Herman says the ability for pay for policing has really been affected by the region's hard economic times, and they want to ensure their funding doesn't decrease.

Herman, who's also the association's vice-president, says crime is another major issue in policing. He says a new initiative needs to be implemented and the province needs to fund it.

The association's Director of OPP Contract North Don Smith says policing costs are expensive yet necessary. That makes it a challenge to find the balance between the two, especially in the Northwest where a lot of smaller communities require policing.

Another issue that affects area municipalities is Highway closures when an accident occurs.
Smith says they're looking into this to see if there are alternate routes that can be used and how to speed up the clean up process to re-open the highway.

Smith will be bringing these regional issues to the provincial level.