To the Editor,
It’s highly questionable whether Surrey, or any other B.C municipality, can build an old-school type “beat”/street policing model to ostensibly “connect with residents”.
Times have changed.
What with modern cop-killing video games, there is nowhere near the level of respect for authority as there was back in the days of stay-at-home moms. Law and order is not just about policing.
With the greatest of respect for all the fantastic work police do (policing and social work!), beat-cops are not going to walk every neighbourhood where a resident may wake up to find their vehicle on blocks with the wheels gone.
Most importantly, police resources don’t need to be further stretched to provide what would amount to a foot-patrol to keep panhandlers and drug-dealers from the doorsteps of politically supportive business and commerce.
The bottom line is this: municipal governments in B.C. must step up and use their political power to lobby provincial and federal governments to pay better attention to social factors such as lack of liveable wages keeping pace with the cost of living, affordable housing, and increased mental health and drug-addiction resources, etc.
Liz Stonard,
Port Alberni