Waterloo Region to visit Winnipeg to share community safety, crime prevention strategies

Media Release

Waterloo Region to visit Winnipeg to share community safety, crime prevention strategies

Waterloo Region delegates will visit Winnipeg for an inter-municipal exchange on strategies to prevent crime through social development, November 17-18.

The exchange will allow Winnipeg City Councillors Gerbasi, Pagtakhan, and Schreyer, as well as Winnipeg’s CAO Doug McNeil and the Deputy Chief of the Winnipeg Police Service to meet with Region of Waterloo Councillor and Chair of Police Services Board Tom Galloway, Chief Bryan Larkin, and Vice-Chair of the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council Shayne Turner to learn first-hand about crime prevention strategies.

“Municipalities play a key role in reducing crime and enhancing community safety,” says Christiane Sadeler, Canadian Municipal Network on Crime Prevention (CMNCP) Co-Chair and Waterloo Region CMNCP representative.

The focus of the exchange will be on strategies that already exist in Winnipeg, such as Just TV, Ma Mawi, the Boldness project, Thunderwing, WASAC, Oshki Annishnabe Nigaaniwak, North End Boxing as well as a variety of City of Winnipeg-based community safety initiatives. Delegates will discuss ways to apply the accumulated knowledge on how to effectively prevent crime within their own municipality. Delegates from Waterloo Region will discuss their strategies for increasing investment in prevention and ways to measure success.

“It is exciting to see that municipal governments are increasingly engaged in crime prevention through social development and we look forward to the next step in our exchange with the city of Winnipeg. We are particularly excited to know that they are keenly interested in our Center of Responsibility here in Waterloo Region” says Councillor Tom Galloway.

The inter-municipal exchange will focus on achieving goals related to addressing priorities at the local and community level, sharing knowledge and data, sustaining funding for programs and networks, as well as increasing and sustaining public engagement.

“It was my privilege to attend a previous exchange as a guest of CMNCP. The day was spent with elected officials and public servants that embrace the benefits of the crime prevention through social development philosophy. It was clear to me that creating backbone infrastructure to support such efforts was critical” says Winnipeg Councillor Mike Pagtakhan.

The Canadian Municipal Network on Crime Prevention (CMNCP) is a network of 17 municipalities representing over 30% of Canada’s population that is working towards greater investment in tackling the root causes of crime and violence. CMNCP is committed to the greater use of effective and collaborative crime prevention strategies.

In partnership with crime prevention specialists at the University of Ottawa and with the financial support and collaboration of Public Safety Canada, CMNCP has launched the “Building Municipal Capacity to Harness Evidence to Prevent Crime” project. The aim of this project is to foster the capacity of municipalities to use evidence to prevent crime and to engage in comprehensive community safety strategies. The inter-municipal exchanges contribute to this goal.

“In 2016, we have significant knowledge about what has been proven to prevent crime. By investing the equivalent of 10% of the $22 billion currently spent on policing, courts and corrections in effective crime prevention, we can reduce crime by a further 50%,” says Professor Irvin Waller from the University of Ottawa.

For more information on CMNCP or the inter-municipal exchanges, please visit www.safercities.ca or contact CMNCP managing consultant Felix Munger.