The Current - How far are cities willing to go to address crime?

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

Cities in Canada have been taking unprecedented measures to deal with crime in their city — like hiring private security guards to patrol their downtowns. Some have even declared a state of emergency. We speak with the Mayors of Smithers, BC., and Barrie, ON., to talk about the unprecedented path they've taken to address public safety, crime, addiction, and homelessness in their communities.

Did you know that it was once illegal to shop on Sundays? That's true for when I was born. I remember this, and I'm not that old. I'm not, okay? Leave me alone. Anyway, I'm Phelan Johnson, and I host See You in Court, a new podcast about the cases that changed Canada and the ordinary people who drove that change. From the drugstore owner who defied the Lord's Day, to the migma man who defended his treaty right to fish, to the gay teacher who got fired and fought back. Find and follow, see you in court, wherever you get your. Your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast.

Some Canadian towns and cities are taking big steps to address rising crime that they believe is tied to growing homeless encampments. The town of Smithers in Northern British Columbia is one of them. It has hired private security guards to monitor an encampment and the downtown core. Gladys Atrell is the mayor of Smithers. Mayor Atrell, good morning. Good morning, Matt. Smithers is a small community, just what, 5,400 people or so live there. How have you seen your town change in recent years?

Well, I think, you know, what we used to see, which was there was always been some folks that live rough or homeless in the community for sure. But in the last several years, coincidental with pandemic times, you know, we started to see really big changes. And then with the types of drugs that are available on the street, I think, you know, what people used to see as a few folks living homeless, that folks were happy to help, that the community, you know, in some ways has transformed. We have a lot of disorder that many other communities have an encampment and then sort of many encampments in other parts of town. So it's quite extraordinary.

Where are people, I mean, are these all locals or is your sense that people are coming from elsewhere? Well, they're local and I guess it just depends a little bit on how you define local. Smithers, though a small community is a hub community for our region. And so there are people who live in more remote communities that will come in, you know, either for social reasons or to receive services or, you know, because they have mental health and addictions issues and they're looking for both the social, the drugs, and the help. And so what have you heard from residents about their concerns around the encampment, the mini encampments, and potential safety risks?

It's really across the board, you know, from people saying, understandably, like just get rid of it, you know, asking council to show the courage to just shut the camp down, get the people out to others on the other side of the spectrum that are demanding that we as the municipality provide better services, shelter services, you know, right up to the addictions and mental health services. So it's a full spectrum. But I would say lots of residents and lots of businesses, are looking for mitigation for sure. The social disorder has ramped up, the inappropriate behaviors, extending to criminal behaviors, like people in many ways have just had it. They've been, you know, the theft, the physical assaults, the demonstrations that people see between others, you know, in the camp, just have reached a boiling point. What is that social, you've given a couple of examples, but what does that social disorder look like?

Well, you know, from seeing people in, you know, kind of the throes of what it looks like after someone has taken some of the drugs, you know, the thing that looks like that's swaying back and forth where it's obvious that people are now, you know, they've taken something and they're not in a good condition. We've had overdoses and deaths downtown. We've seen fires in the camp. It's right. It's between the town hall and our library. So there's a high fear for building safety. You know, people, as we see in other communities camped out either in our public square downtown in doorways there's been fires there's fights there's assaults people have been assaulted you know both in their homes and in businesses so it's it's pretty dramatic and traumatic for those who experience it and it's traumatic for the people who are living in those conditions i'm not deaf to that there's no upside the folks that are living in camps aren't living they're not great lives you know they're We get winter here. It's going to get cold. So far, I don't think we've had anyone freeze to death, but we've certainly had deaths in the winter. So it's just the full spectrum, and it's really hard on people. It's hard on everyone, and we just don't have the ability in this small town to provide all the services without the required help from other entities, and that includes the provincial government.

And so council has, as I said in the introduction, now decided to hire private security to monitor. or the encampment. Why private security? Why not law enforcement? Well, we do have, sort of, we do have an RCMP detachment in town. And, you know, again, this is a small community. So our detachment is about 18 people. That includes highway patrol. The town of Smithers pays for 11 members. It's quite a lot for a town our size. So we do have good members in the police force. We have, and they do their job, but it's a small detachment. And they can't be everywhere all the time. We have funding internally for two community safety officers who right now we only have one, though. I mean, people come and go.

So we're seeking that second officer. And we just don't have a way of, you know, either physically getting more CSOs, supporting it through our budget. And so this is a way of making resources go a little further. Council wanted, you know, alternates provide it. So this is one of those alternates and we've decided to try it using a northern-based security firm who will provide those. you know, at the camp, providing a little security for people who live around there, for people who work around there, and for people who live there, you know, being a bit of a deterrent for criminal activity. And when they can, they will also be patrolling downtown.

So these are to cover the hours when our CSOs aren't working. So after hours and weekends. What sort of powers are the security guards going to have? You mentioned a number of incidents, assaults, fights, what have you. How are those security guards? cards going to be able to monitor the situation? What sort of powers are they going to have to enforce the law, for example? Well, they're not law enforcement. So they're not going to be doing the job of the RCMP. RCS don't either. They have the RCSOs and RCP can enforce our bylaws. Of course, the RCMP can enforce criminal infractions. What the security cards will be able to do, or it's our hope that they'll be able to do by their presence, is deter people from going into the

encampment if they have no business there, to stop things going into the encampment that might be dangerous, and then to also call if they need extra assistance. So to call the RCMP. So while this might seem like it's maybe not as effective as if we could have more CSOs and more RCMP, it's something we can try with the resources that we have. And I think, you know, having a municipality go to this extent describes the bleakness of the problem from our perspective. We've added staff. We've paid for additional RCMP. You know, an additional RCMP member is about $220,000.

In my time on council, we've added a couple. Like, that's a lot of money for us to add. We've added CSOs. So this is one more thing we can try in the face of not having the things that we need, which is shelter, more supportive housing, a place for people to go when they actually want help for their

addictions. We have something here, you know, a situation table, and it does extraordinary work by helping people one on one. But we just don't have enough of the things that we need to enable us to move people off the street, into shelter if they need it, into housing, and then to get the supports. We don't have that. And so this encampment, we don't have a way to deal with the encampment. You know, people want us to close it down. We can't close it down. I was going to say, what do you say to people who say shut it down? Well, you have to hear them. You know, I get it. I understand town hall is across from the

encampment. I see the encampment every day. I see the people who live in there every day. I see the results of that every day. I have lots of sympathy for how people feel. Lots of them have been hurt. You know, residents and businesses and the people who live in the encampment have been assaulted and physically hurt. I can see that and I have sympathy, but we cannot.

We do not legally have the authority to close it down if we can't move people somewhere else. So that's what we're working on, you know, hoping that we will get those shelter beds, that we will get enough housing and that there will be supports to move people to treatment when they're ready to go. What would you say to people who say that this is not a long-term solution? You described a problem, but that this is simply, the cliché is a band-aid on a problem,

not a long-term solution to what you're describing in your community? I absolutely agree. I agree. We need those other things that I described. We need the services appropriate for the people that need them. and it's beyond the scope of our local government to do that. It's not our mandate to do that. But of course, everyone knows this story.

It's in towns across Canada. We're faced with the problem in our community. So we're taking some steps. We're going to monitor it. See, is it working? Are we getting good results from it? What else can we do within the resources that we have available? So I agree.

This is not a long-term solution. The long-term solution is proper health supports for those that need them. If people are in the, you know, if their behaviors are criminal, there ought to be a way to deal with them through the criminal justice system as well. So there are shortcomings in every avenue. And until we address those, we're going to have these problems in communities. But for us in this town, we're going to take a step that we could figure out how to do, see how it works, and then keep banging the drum to get the right supports in a community our size.

You know, the province is doing all kinds of good things, but they're not, we're not feeling them in our town. We're not getting the shelter. We don't have, there's stuff coming, but it's, you know, 2027. There's two more winters. So we're just not there yet. I hope we get there. But in the meantime, we're going to try what we can to try to make it safer for the people who are living vulnerable lives and for our residents and our business owners. Gladys Atrell, good to speak with you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Matt. I appreciate your attention to it. Gladys Atrell is the mayor of Smithers, British Columbia. What kind of person takes on the law?

Can they ever really know what they're getting into? A really tough-looking guy came up to us and said, Are you part of this gay case? My family started getting death threats. I wasn't able to go outside alone anymore. I'm Phelan Johnson, host of See You in Court, a new podcast about the cases that changed Canada and the ordinary people who made history.

This is David and Goliath we have here. Find and follow See You in Court wherever you get your podcasts. As she mentioned, communities across the country are facing similar concerns. Last week, Barry, Ontario declared a state of emergency to deal with similar issues to the ones unfolding in Smithers. Alex Nuttall is the mayor of Barry, Ontario. Mayor Nuttall, good morning to you. Good morning. Thanks for having me on today. Why did you declare a state of emergency in your city? Well, because there's an emergency here.

The emergency is in some ways criminal in nature. It is in some ways health care related and environmental in nature. And quite frankly, just socioeconomic in nature. So I think it's important that you label something what it is and then move forward with how we're going to have a long-term effect on it. You have described what is unfolding in your city as lawlessness. What does that look like? Give me an example or paint me a picture.

Yeah, I'll give you August as an example. We had double homicide, dismemberment of those bodies. We had, you know, rampant drugs, overdoses, assaults. The Wednesday before I announced the state of emergency, which would have been, I don't know, something like the third or fourth of September, we had two cases of fire set, a tent that was, you know, You know, busted by the police, which contained two crossbows, starter pistol, drugs, drug money, four knives. And this is just sitting right on the side of the street in downtown Barry. And beyond that, the encampment where we had the issues of the double homicide and certainly the murders and the other crime taking place, we had 100 individuals using the washer, right? to our streams, which we're going right down to our beach and into Lake Simco, which is where

we pull our drinking water from. It's just the lack of order, the lack of, you know, positive, I think living has resulted in an emergency being here on the ground. And so you've said that you want to, these are your words, reclaim our streets, our boulevards, our parks, our squares, our feeling of safety, and our order. state of an emergency do? Well, what it's been able to do for us, I think Barry's in a little bit of a different scenario than many, many different cities across the country, although I think it's not much different than the mayor I just heard before me.

We are not responsible for our social services. That's not because we don't want to be responsible. It's because there's provincial legislation that defines that the Barry social services need to be procured through our service manager, which is the county of Simco. And so, well, we don't really have control over the ability to provide the services help supports that are required here. They're county SIMCO is funded by the federal government, the provincial government, to the municipal governments, of which the city of Barry provides about 25% of the municipal contribution to the county. What we've been able to do through the state of emergency is to set up an emergency management team to create hierarchy inside of all of the different services that come together, the police service, the fire service, service, the bylaw department, the county of Simco, and to the county Simco's credit, they stepped up and

they were able to deliver 160 beds for us to be able to start working with individuals who are encampments and providing them space and shelter moving forward. So, you know, what it's done is, is allowed us to access resources. It's allowed us to get a stable approach in place by bringing all of the agencies to the table and identify any of the gaps that are out there that would have, you know, you know, us missing the mark in terms of meeting what the previous judgments of removing encampments have been. And so we're doing everything we can to live by the rules that have been outlined by the judiciary to this point. And we wouldn't be able to do that without this state of emergency in place. Have you considered, I mean, Mayor Atroll was talking

about hiring private security, for example, in Smithers to help patrol encampments, but also give residents around there maybe a greater sense of security. Is that something that you'd consider? No, we actually went the opposite way, but we're in a different situation, the sense that we don't have the RCMP and we don't have the Ontario Provincial Police. What we have is the Berry Police Department. So if more resources are needed in order to meet the day, they come and request more resources to meet the day. And that's what we've been doing over the last couple of years. When I took office, there was zero officers in our downtown. We then, The following summer, I think, got to two and four.

The 2024 summer, we were able to get, I think, somewhere in the neighborhood of about 12 by the end of the summer. And this year, we increased that to 17, including special constables. So, you know, we're trying to bring everything together in a single strategy, you know, restore order in terms of making sure that the criminality and lawlessness is not taking place. at the same time have all of the benefits of housing, of mental health support, of addiction support in place prior to going and removing these encampments. So these individuals aren't, you know, just left wandering off, but rather given the opportunity to restore to a very, you know, successful life, hopefully, by working through the different pieces of the system that are coming together at this point.

So you've said we encourage those who are in the encampments to go somewhere that doesn't have the same standards when it comes to encampments. Where are the people who are living in those tents going to go? Well, I think that you're actually taking half of a sentence that I say, which is that if you want support and you want help, Barry's the place to do it. We want to provide that to you. But if you want to live in addictions and if you want to live in tents on the sides of streets, that's somewhere else. That's not buried. There are places around Ontario that sanctioned encampments. There are places that allow camping. Barry is not one of them. What we are wanting to do is enable people to deal with addictions,

enable people to get the mental health supports, the food, the shelter that they need. But at the same time, restore order on our streets by letting individuals know that we want to be there to help you, but you have to live by the norms of our city, which our city is saying is helping people get out of addictions out of those emergency situations they're in and into a long-term successful plan going forward. I guess the question, and that's the heart of that quotation that I read, the question is whether the services are there for those who might be looking for them or the services are there that would allow them to live in a sense of safety. There are concerns that have been raised about that.

Have a listen to this. This is from Kenan Ailwyn, former Barry City Councilor and a local housing advocate. There is not enough resources to support the number of people who are experiencing homelessness on a daily basis in Barry. And we've known that for a long time. All you need to do is check the County of Simco data portal, where you can see shelter numbers each and every night, and you can see that the shelter system is consistently at or over capacity in the city of Barry.

So we know the resources aren't there. The services that are there are inadequate. They're trying the best they can with the resources they have, but it's not enough to support the need in our community. Maranato, what do you make of that concern? Well, look, I think there's a few things. You know, Keenan and the last council failed to call a state of emergency. They missed the opportunity to be able to step in when this was only focused on fentanyl and focused on drug-related issues.

And that's unfortunately a sad day in our city's history because we know where that's led to. Secondly, you know, it's interesting. I would have agreed with Keenan in the beginning of August that there wasn't the amount of housing or supports available that were needed. What's happened since then is something completely different. The provincial government has provided homelessness prevention funding, almost doubling it. We have received additional shelter funding from the province into the county of Simco, allowing for both Tiffin Street and for Blake Street to be able to be used for additional shelter. We've also seen the opening of the heart hub here in Simco County called the Heart of Simco. That funding from the provincial government that's been put in place to allow those supports to be placed.

And in advance of declaring the state of emergency, we put the county on notice that we would be removing encampments and we needed to have space available for literally in excess of 100 individuals that was not being communicated before. where there was space for. The county went to work. They had about two weeks to put it together, and they came with 160 rooms available or spaces available for individuals to be removed or offered space too as the encampments were removed. And so, you know, I think that while that might have been the case in early August and quite frankly through to mid-August, what the county's been able to do is free up a whole bunch of space. And right inside the emergency order, it's interesting because, you know, criticizing the emergency order that frees up resources to

allow additional services for individuals who are suffering, that allows for additional resources to be used to provide housing and apartment support and transitional housing is a little bit strange because the services that are being asked for by Keenan in that sentence are actually provided the resources for them are provided through the emergency order. I have to let you go, but I just wonder what success. here looks like. One of the things that the mayor of Smithers said is what she's doing is not a long-term solution. And if housing is an issue and those supports are an issue at the base level in your community, what does success look like here for you? Well, I think there's different levels of

success like you're saying. But just right off the bat, when we remove the encampment on Mulcaster Street and Barry, 39 out of 44 individuals have accepted help and support and housing. I want 100% success, not, you know, 85, but 85's a really, really good start. I think we can all agree on that. But there's a much broader question. Like, this isn't a Barry emergency. It's a state of emergencies being declared in Barry. But this is a national emergency, and it's a provincial emergency, and it's on, in every

downtown of every mid-sized, the major center in our country. It started in Vancouver, and it made its way all the way to Halifax. And so, you know, our office isn't stopping with just what we're doing in Barry. We're going to start putting a lot of pressure on our provincial federal counterparts to come to the table. And I'm not just talking about money. Like really, money, what we've done through our state of emergency said, we'll go it alone if we have to providing these services, right? Where I think that we need to go is to ensure that the laws reflect being able to clean up communities, that compassion intervention is allowed, that if a requirement,

for the use of the notwithstanding clauses in place to remove an encampment that's stopping a person in a wheelchair from going down the sidewalk, that that is, in fact, used. And so I think there's a lot of work to be done on the federal and provincial level on this, as much as it's being done here in the city of Barry, right on the ground. Alex Nettle, I appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much. You too. Thanks much. Alex Nettle is the mayor of Barry, Ontario. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway.

Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to CBC. cdbc.ca slash podcasts.