BC is the only province in Canada where police officers are not allowed to charge criminals. They can arrest them – but they aren’t allowed to charge them – and it shows.

Too many Prince Georgians have watched cases where the police did their job, made an arrest, and recommended charges — only to see the file go nowhere because Crown Counsel declined to prosecute. At 39.71 per 100,000, BC has the lowest incarceration rate in Canada. By comparison Alberta’s rate is 91.05 per 100,000 and Saskatchewan is a whopping 239 per 100,000. BC Crown is forced to use a rigid 2-part test: “Substantial likelihood of conviction” & “Public Interest Factors”. By comparison, Ontario allows police to lay charges using the much lower “reasonable likelihood of conviction” test.  The BC system is intentionally designed to make things harder for police officers to keep us safe.

Dan realizes that lobbying the provincial government to take the steps necessary to help police officers do their job is a waste of time. History tells us the BC government cares more about the criminal than the victim. But what can we do at the municipal level?

Dan is advocating for the City to fund a small team of lawyers and embed them directly with the Prince George RCMP detachment. While this team will assist RCMP members in the administration of their day-to-day duties the team’s main focus will be on advancing civil and criminal remedies that will put these criminals behind bars, or banished from our city. The team would be positioned to pursue private prosecutions under Sections 504 and 507 of the Criminal Code in the cases where Crown prosecutors decline to advance the charges recommended by the police. Where appropriate they will seek restraining orders to keep serial offenders out of the city.

Dan’s position is straightforward: public safety policy should be proactive, timely and responsive, not passive. We need to take back our streets – because nobody else will do it for us.