THUNDER BAY – POLITICS – Thunder Bay voters will elect a new Mayor on October 24, 2022. As part of our 2022 election coverage NetNewsLedger reached out to all of the candidates for Mayor with these questions on the issue of crime.
We received responses from Ken Boshcoff, Clinton Harris, Gary Mack, Robert Szczepanski, and Peng You.
Here are the answers:
In spite of our Police Force having one of the highest crime clearance rates in the Province our geographical location makes it a central hub for the wrong kind of people.
Over the years we have had specialized task forces on crime, on violence, on homelessness, on vandalism, and on poverty which confirms that we are already organized to address these issues.
And on several of these fronts significant progress has been made.
However, as a community we are a collecting point for an area larger than many countries but must fund our police out of a tax base of 110,000 people.
The first step will be for the Mayor to convene a special meeting of the Chairs of all these committees to mobilize a consensus priority approach to REALLY addressing these intertwined problems step by step and following through with progress reports to ensure responsibility.
By committing to a plan that can be measured we take full responsibility for its implimentation.