The Star Vancouver is reporting that "Bring back law enforcement on the dock says Delta's top cop." I agree. "In 1997, the federal government eliminated the Ports Canada Police, and 18 years later, Vancouver’s port authority stopped funding a waterfront policing program."
"Once the port authority pulled out, the number of officers solely devoted to policing ports in the Vancouver area fell from 13 to nine - and today, the number is zero, said Neil Dubord, chief of police for Delta, B.C. For Dubord, responsible for policing a Vancouver-area municipality that is also home to Canada’s biggest container port, that’s created an alarming policing gap in an area where organized crime is known to flourish." Exactly. That should be an election issue.
Deltaport’s lack of police means less than 1 per cent of containers get checked
Police seize 1,000 kilos of cocaine in Montreal Port
1.6 tons of cocaine seized at Port of New York
15.5 tons of cocaine seized in Philadelphia
It maybe come an election issue, here, but in other parts of Canada, not so much. I don't know who polices the other ports in Canada, but it must be very convenient to have a smaller police force deal with a port as large as Delta Port.
ReplyDeleteChretien was P.M. in 1997 and Paul Martin, Finance Minister. Paul Martin was well known for his budget cuts to all sorts of things in Canada during his tenure. Port Police was one of them. One could say it simply was a financial decision, but then Paul Martin also had a shipping company. May have been in a "blind trust", but truly...........I've always wondered about all of it.
Paul Martin would have remembered the problems we had on the docks during the Hal Banks era, and other things, so why he would have cut the Port Police is beyond me. Now Martin went on to be P.M. and one would not think he'd change things, much. However, since then we had 9 years of Harper and 4 of Trudeau and neither of them did anything. they simply left it up to the local police forces to deal with port crime. OMG, how stupid. If terrorists of any sort wanted to do anything in the world, all they have to do is blow up a port and most of them are not "policed" like airports. It has always made me wonder, if governments simply don't care or just gave that little area over to criminals.
I am pleased the Delta mayor and police chief have taken this up. thank you for running an article on this important issue.
In this day and age, the Government of Canada needs a unified Port Police for the country.