NDP shadow minister hears local safety concerns
By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on November 12, 2024.
Herald photo by Justin Seward
David Shepherd was in the city talking to citizens about public safety on Saturday.David Shepherd, Alberta’s official opposition Shadow Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Services, visited Lethbridge on Saturday to speak with citizens about their concerns will public safety.
“Things have gotten exponentially worse over the last five years,” said Shepherd.
“There’s a lot of factors around that but I think a lot of that is decisions of this provincial government.”
A recent Alberta Municipalities survey showed that 60 per cent of Albertans feel unsafe in their communities.
“They feel that crime is on the rise,” said Shepherd.
“It’s higher among women. I think two-thirds of women are feeling unsafe, one in four Albertans have been a victim of crime and about 50 per cent of Albertans fear that they’re going to be the next victim.”
The Alberta NDP says public safety has degraded significantly under the Danielle Smith UCP government.
“I know here in Lethbridge, certainly that’s been a concern that we’ve heard from folks,” said Shepherd.
“I know it’s been a conversation with city council, certainly during the time that Shannon Phillips was my colleague and MLA here. (I) certainly heard from her about those concerns in this local community.”
Top concerns the NDP hear about is the current government not providing enough social services and supports for those needing them, the addictions crisis centred around drug poisonings and substance abuse struggles, the need for more police presence, affordability and income inequality.
“So folks really recognize that this is a complex crisis, there’s a numbers of things we need to do and the common thread through all of that, these are all issues that are within the responsibility and the control of the provincial government,” said Shepherd.
Shepherd thinks a lot of issues have stemmed from the UCP’s ideological approach.
“Where they want to control as much as possible, they’ve pulled back a lot of funding and they’re making it much more difficult for the people that actually have the expertise who are on the ground in the community to be actually able to help,” said Shepherd.
The Alberta NDP’s focus is taking real action and look into making real investments, he says.
“Police law enforcement, they are key partners in this, they’re absolutely (an) essential part of how we build safety in our communities but police are not social workers, police are not mental health workers,” said Shepherd.
“So if we want to support our frontline police officers, we need our provincial government to step up and provide the funding and the support to be able to provide those kinds of supports.”
Shepherd met with Team Lethbridge, Mayor Blaine Hyggen and councillors at last week’s Rural Municipalities Association conference in Edmonton.
“What I’m hearing is they feel there has been some improvement,” said Shepherd.
“The city, I think, has worked very hard. I’ve been reading some of the conversations and the records and certainly the city stepped up in a lot of ways. They recognized the provincial government was not stepping up, so the city did.”
20-19
The “Shadow Minister” (David Shepherd) should best stay in the shadow(s). This reporting is so full of rhetorical bunk that it is surprising that the “story” stays on the newsprint!
First and foremost, his quotation:
““I know it’s been a conversation with city council, certainly during the time that Shannon Phillips was my colleague and MLA here…”
NOTHING farther from the truth Mr. Shepherd. The TRUTH actually rests on the fact that Shannon Phillips was invited by City Council several times and refused every time to attend. John Middleton-Hope, before and after being on City Council, personally requested to meet with her (Phillips) many times for “a coffee”, and that was refused. Multiple residents, organizations and interst groups also requested meetings with MLA Phillips, and these were as well not responded to! We all know that Phillips was basicallly absent and unreachable, non responsive and aloof to her constituents and the whole of our Lethbridge community.
This same MLA (Phillips) dumped us for no apparent reason, mid-term and is now employed at the UofL!
Credibility, intergrity, committment, responsiveness, interaction, openess and most importantly, approachableness were/are NOT attributes of former NDP Lethbridge West MLA, Shannon Phillips.
I dare say that we should have learned a big lesson to not remotely consider a vote for the NDP in the Lethbridge West upcoming Byelection! In particular for their selected candidate (Rob Miyashiro) who was a bully towards his fellow council members when he sat on LethbrIdge City Counci, along with being a full fledged supporter of the Supervised Consumption Site, that, for the most part, waa the genesis of the crime and violence we, to this day, are experiencing in our community.
Mr. Shepherd, “Thanks, but no thanks” for your attempt(s) to muddy the waters, with your obvious erroneous comments.
“The Alberta NDP’s focus is taking real action and look into making real investments,he says”, oh really? Details please. Actually don’t bother even if you would or could. I’ve seen enough of your approach. We can hire any 18 year old to just write cheques. Even the B.C. NDP realize you can’t just write unlimited cheques and police your way out of this issue. See: B.C. NDP – some admitted lessons learned.
My business will not be able to survive another NDP government with their pro-harm reduction policies which suck valuable tax dollars from mental health and addiction treatment funding and allow massive growth of non-profits who enable and encourage addicts. Even the BC SCS sites no longer counsel addicts who use their sites towards treatment. Alberta has made huge progress in its efforts and this year we see tangible evidence Alberta is on the right track! Never again do I want another NDP government! Never! I would close my business! I have never recovered losses from the SCS fiasco which the NDP forced on us!
Look at BC if you think I am fearmongering!
The way BC has handled the drug problem has turned into a financial disaster that affects the entire country with billions of Canadian taxpayer dollars poured into their programs, where the non-profits are a billion dollar industry and thousands continue to die due to bad decisions! It is an outright failure! They are so desperate to hide their failure that they only publicize their fatal overdoses from illegal toxic drugs, and still continue to have the highest per capita totals in Canada, hiding the safe supply falal overdoses from safe supply drugs they supply to addicts. With all of their extreme programs and over 50 venues for supervised use, numbers continue to grow! This is the implementation of the NDP’s harm reduction initiatives after 20 years in play! Avoid the NDP at all costs!