Q&A: Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek talks public safety, policing in the city

Mayor Jyoti Gondek says she's hoping a combination of compassion-based care and enforcement will help Calgarians feel safer when travelling through the city's core or using public transit.

In an interview Tuesday on the Calgary Eyeopener, Gondek said she's holding out hope for a new mental health and addiction centre, where police can bring people in crisis so they can be properly cared for.

"I'm really hoping that this model of a mental health and addiction centre — that the Calgary Police Service desperately needs — comes to fruition," she said.

"The city has been actively engaged in this conversation. We have committed some funding in our budget. I'm really hoping the provincial government comes through with some funding for this model."

In recent weeks, both the city and the province have made a number of announcements as calls to improve public safety on Calgary transit have grown, including adding more security guards, hiring additional police officers and increasing crisis teams.

• What questions do you have about the upcoming Alberta election? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca

Loren McGinnis, the host of the Calgary Eyeopener, asked the mayor about the role of enforcement in Calgary and what can be done to improve transit safety.

LISTEN | Mayor Jyoti Gondek on policing in Calgary:

The following has been edited for length and clarity. 

LM: What's your perspective on this move to add more enforcement in the core and on public transit?

JG: I would say that we're at a point in time where people are feeling unsafe moving from destination to destination. It's more than just feeling uncomfortable.

At the same time, there are people in crisis in our city, and the thing that I hold out hope for is the compassion-based approach that was brought to us by the Calgary Police Service quite some time ago when they talked about having a real-time mental health and addiction centre, and how can we move people from being in crisis out in public spaces and take them somewhere that they can be cared for. 

So I'm still hoping to see the results of that initiative. I think that's what we need to do. It's a combination of enforcement for the criminal element, but it's also a compassion-based response to people in crisis.

LM: When we had Chief Neufeld on, he mentioned lowering the threshold for where an officer will enforce rules and move people along. Are you concerned about this increase in enforcement?

JG: It's not a matter of enforcement alone, and I've heard the chief say this many times. I've heard this from the Calgary Police Service consistently over time. They know that enforcement is not the only way out of this. They need some strong partnerships, and that's why news that we were doubling efforts on police and crisis response teams was very encouraging last week. 

I think when we talk about enforcement to move people along out of public spaces, the point is, you can't displace them. You can't incarcerate them. These are folks that are actually in need of some supports. So the focus needs to be on where we are taking people to get them the care that they need.

LISTEN | Calgary police Chief Mark Neufeld speaks about safety on public transit:

LM: I want to talk about the city's relationship with Calgary police. In 2021, you voted against a city police budget increase of $6.1 million. In 2020, you voted in favour of a motion to reallocate $20 million of our police budget to social services. Have your views on policing changed over the last couple of years?

JG: During budget setting, there are a series of motions that we go through, and there is a series of amendments that we focus on.

In 2020, one of the things that we focused on was whether an additional $20 million was something that the Calgary Police Service could use at that point in time, given that the pandemic had limited their ability to recruit new officers. So that one-time $20 million that was not added to the budget was an effort to save taxpayers the dollars we knew could not be expended. There was also a conversation around where the allocation of resources and dollars should come from for this type of crisis response and call diversion that the police were hoping to get into. So there's a series of votes that take place before we vote on a final budget. So this concept that we vote on a police budget is not entirely accurate.

In 2021, I voted against the budget writ large because I didn't believe that we hit the proportional share properly. And so, when we talk about little snippets of votes during a fulsome, one-week process, it's important to recognize that we have supported the police budget over time for the five years I've been here. For the first three years that I was a councillor, I was also a police commission member with a mandate to support the commission's request for a budget and to advocate for it at council.

So, I think these little votes in between an entire budget cycle don't tell the whole story.

LM: I want to ask you, over the last two years, if you would characterize your views of having changed in the roles you're in?

JG: So in the roles I've been in, I've been an advocate for compassion-based care. I've been an advocate for making sure that officers in the police service aren't expected to do everything that gets thrown at them. I've been an advocate for call diversion, and I've been an advocate for getting this right in partnership with the police service. And I think that is quite visible given the announcement we made last week talking about the investments that we have made as a police service and a city to address transit safety. 

And we are bumping up the police budget from about $437 million to close to $465 million in this four-year budget cycle.

LM: At the announcement last week, there was a moment when a reporter asked you about police funding, suggesting you "flip-flop on basic issues like public safety." You chose not to answer the question. Why not?

JG: I don't answer questions from uncredentialed journalists. You have posed the same question to me, and I have answered your question, and in the time that I've been mayor as well as a councillor, you can ask anybody that's in a media outlet whether I've ever walked away from a scrum or a question. I don't walk away from things, and certainly I'm not a flip-flopper. People know my position, and I stick to it.

LM: The premier says, "We must defeat the outbreak of crime in our cities whatever it takes." Has she told you what "whatever it takes" might mean?

JG: I'm not sure "whatever it takes" is exactly the way to address this. I'm not sure why they're using that slogan. I was surprised to see it on their podium.

LM: I sense a tension between the perspective of the provincial government and your perspective on this right now.

JG: I don't know exactly where the provincial government stands on the type of compassionate care that we are hoping to deliver. Our council has been very clear on our mandate to ensure that we are taking care of folks that are in positions of crisis. I would hope that the provincial government is on board with this, and we continue to advocate for this. 

So their campaign mode is something that I can't speak to, but we remain committed to the things that we have promised to deliver to Calgarians.

LM: If somebody has to hop on a train, maybe even tonight, to get to work, or a bus to get to work, what will success and safety look like for them, and when can they expect that?

JG: We have deployed more officers and resources and more security guards, which allows the Calgary Police Service to focus on areas where they are seeing high criminal activity. So it's my expectation that this type of redeployment and focus on areas where things are going sideways does help Calgarians feel safer on transit. We've improved lighting, we've improved cleaning, and these things take time. But Calgarians need to know that we are addressing the issues that we're seeing, and we're not the only city going through this. 

So we remain committed to providing the best possible transit experience.