Pittfield On Crime & Other Issues

Pitfield vows to get tough on crime across entire city

Submitted by Louie Piacentini on Fri, 2006-10-13 17:03.

Criticizes Miller as being tough on taxpayers, soft on crime

SUSAN O’NEILL

soneill@insidetoronto.com

Improving safety and security should be a priority across the entire city and not just in the 13 priority neighbourhoods targeted by the current mayor, who, according to mayoralty candidate Jane Pitfield, has been soft on crime during his term of office.

In her fifth major policy announcement Friday, the Ward 26 Don Valley West councillor not only criticized Mayor David Miller’s performance this term, but his new safety plan as well, which he unveiled in Scarborough last week.

“I am tired, and so are most people in the city, of hearing just about 13 priority neighbourhoods. The priority has to be the whole city,” Pitfield said during an afternoon announcement at the York Gate Mall in the Jane-Finch community. “We have to do a lot more than providing basketball for adolescents.”

Pitfield argued that Miller hasn’t done enough over the past three years to fight crime and enable young people across the city to succeed.

“He has talked a lot about giving young people the resources, education, training and opportunities that they need to lead a positive life. But he has not done enough for them.

Not a single successful youth program has been put in place during his term. And now he has the audacity to step forward and try to make the same promises he made three years ago,” she said.

“He says he wants to invest in 13 neighbourhoods, $1 million each. Why 13? I will focus on the entire city and not stigmatize certain communities,” Pitfield said in reference to Miller’s plan to invest $13 million in the 13 neighbourhoods across the city which have high levels of poverty and low levels of social services.

Miller also unveiled a plan to waive recreation fees for youth in those neighbourhoods in an effort to increase access to programs.

But, Pitfield said recreational facilities are often not available.

“Last week the current mayor made other big promises….all of these sound good. But here’s the question: will they lead to results and will they change lives?” said Pitfield.

“David Miller has been soft on crime but tough on taxpayers. He’s also soft with his ideas on how to fundamentally change the landscape of the city to significantly improve the well being of residents and attitudes of young people. Toronto needs to totally refocus on creating a safe and healthy city.”

For her part, Pitfield said she will advocate for the city to assume the operating costs to keep swimming pools, gymnasiums and other rooms in schools open for community uses.

She also said she would work with organizations such as Big Brothers and Big Sisters to attract volunteers for mentoring programs.

And she plans to hire more police.

“We’ve hired 450, but 250 are going to retire,” Pitfield said, noting that she would recommend the hiring of 250 officers to replace those who are leaving the service as well as the hiring of an additional 250 new officers.

“We need a crackdown on crime with greater support for police services,” said Pitfield, who reported she is in favour of providing the police with a helicopter and supports the installation of surveillance cameras in areas with high pedestrian traffic.

Pitfield estimated the cost of hiring the new officers, which would be split by all three levels of government, would be roughly $5 million for the city.
She did not have a cost estimate for her entire crime plan.