By Sheldon Spackman

Veer backs call for federal, provincial help battling opioids

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The City of Red Deer is joining the call for more help in fighting the growing drug crisis.

On October 19, Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman said he received unanimous support from the mayors of Alberta’s 22 mid-sized cities to send letters to the provincial and federal governments expressing the urgent need for assistance.

Red Deer Mayor Tara Veer says communities are hard-pressed to respond to the national addictions crisis and the types of crimes that are occurring in their neighbourhoods.

“Without the strong leadership of the provincial and federal governments on these issues, municipalities have very limited powers to deal with justice and health issues,” laments Veer. “Yet the consequences of those justice and health issues are felt by our local citizens and our citizens rightfully expect governments to address concerns. However, municipalities don’t necessarily have the powers in order to meet those expectations.”

Veer says it’s very clear that Red Deer and other regional hub-type urban centres are faced with a new level of social disorder and health challenges like never before.

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“We continue to call on provincial and federal governments to provide us with a sufficient policing budget so we can respond to the enforcement expectations of our citizens,” states Veer. “The Mid-Sized Cities Mayors Caucus has a long-standing request before the provincial government to resolve the inequity between urban and rural police budget funding, but also for those orders of government to build the social and health infrastructure necessary in order to serve vulnerable populations.”

She points out Red Deer, for example, has one of the highest homeless populations in the province but the lowest per capita funding for shelter space.

“In terms of either the federal or provincial justice minister to respond to an ‘ask’ in a letter, I don’t know that anything specific will necessarily come out of it,” Veer admits. “However, it does elevate our voice before the provincial and federal government. Generally, the province works directly with Calgary and Edmonton because they have populations around one million, but the composite of the Mid-Sized Cities Mayors Caucus is a representation of approximately 1.4 million. Together we really are the next largest voice in terms of representation by population.”

Veer adds that by bringing their concerns forward in a unified manner, it makes very clear to the province the need for government responsiveness.

Along with police funding, Veer says the caucus wants to hold government accountable for sharing cannabis revenue to help municipalities with the local enforcement related to federal cannabis legislation. They also want to secure stable capital grant funding through the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI).

“I think that the voice of municipalities is stronger together,” exclaims Veer. “A part of the challenge of mid-sized urbans is that we all have very similar social and budgetary needs in our community, similar to Calgary and Edmonton. But we don’t have the same direct negotiating relationship with the province that Calgary and Edmonton have, so Mid-Sized Caucus is our means of working together to carry those similar initiatives forward together.”