Federal government promises $7.7M for crime prevention in Calgary

The federal government is pledging $7.7 million in crime prevention funding for local organizations in Calgary, as the region grapples with how to tackle gun activity.

That money will come from a $250 million pot called the Building Safer Communities Fund (BSCF). The federal initiative gets money to local organizations around the country to address gang violence, firearms crime and helping vulnerable youth. 

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino made the announcement backed by a handful of community organizations in Calgary who are set to benefit from the promised funding. It's part of the federal government's multi-pronged focus on gun crime and firearms regulations, some of which have been controversial. 

"The work around prevention has to begin in the community," he said Wednesday.

"We need to tackle the root cause of the problem, the conditions that sometimes spur someone — especially a young person — to fall into line with a life of crime."

Communities and First Nations are allocated money from the BSCF based on a formula that includes population density and crime severity, the minister said. 

"It allows us to interrupt that pipeline between vulnerability and criminality," Krista Flint, the executive director of the Highbanks Society, which supports young single mothers, said. 

The funding will allow them to accept ten more families into their programming. 

The municipality will manage the distribution of the funding to different organizations. Mendicino added supporting local initiatives is one arm of his government's crime prevention efforts, along with stronger border measures to slow firearms smuggling and more regulatory measures for guns. 

Fewer homicides, shootings

In April, Calgary's police chief said violent crimes were down from 2021 levels, placing 2022 roughly in line with the five-year average. Chief Mark Neufeld added the city is fairly close to the middle of the Statistics Canada crime severity index.

That message came after a spate of incidents including a shooting by the downtown library, a killing near a grocery store in Kensington and a stabbing on a city bus.

"Every child has the right to live a life that's free of crime and victimization," Supt. Asif Rashid said at Wednesday's announcement.  

As of mid-July, shootings and homicides are down from last year's police statistics for the same period. The Calgary Police Service reports 50 shootings compared to 78 in 2022 and 10 homicides versus 17 last year. Calgary police and Alberta's RCMP were also recently involved in a country-wide operation cracking down on privately manufactured firearms with no traceable information, sometimes called ghost guns.

On Tuesday the federal government held an announcement for $1.13 million in crime prevention efforts on Tsuut'ina Nation. 

The sprawling reserve on the edge of Calgary has seen an explosion in construction, including shopping centres and restaurants, as well as an additional 35,000 vehicles a day on its roads.

Chief Roy Whitney said that expansion and the proximity to Calgary has brought more crime to the area. 

"Unfortunately with that, crime comes to our small community, which includes guns and gangs. With this funding, the Tsuut'ina police can take new initiatives, such as gun control and gang prevention."

Police on the Nation say they've seen three times as many calls for service in the last three months, though the severity of the crime hasn't seen the same increase.

These announcements come just a few months after the provincial government pledged funding to support 100 more law enforcement officers in Calgary and Edmonton over the next 18 months.