Rob Carnie: Community safety: let’s follow up on the meeting that we had. There were a lot of people showing up and talking about, mainly, the homeless people that are around Moose Jaw and some people fear for their safety.
A lot of our homeless population are harmless people who just want to live life and get a bite to eat. But there are people in our downtown core that are upset, and some elderly people have come forward and said they fear for their safety.
How do we follow up now, as a city, after that meeting with all the information that you absorbed?
Maryse Carmichael: I’m very thankful to see the involvement of the people that were at the July 29th meeting, the public meeting.
It was indeed a great chance to hear from residents from all sides of, and I’m not saying both sides because there’s more than just two. There’re so many different aspects of when we’re talking about community safety, well-being of the homeless population, shelters and all that.
It was a chance for everyone to connect and for the council and administration to hear the different viewpoints on what people support and want to see in the City of Moose Jaw.
Rob: We get into some red tape here too, don’t we? Because social services falls under the provincial government's umbrella, correct?
Maryse: It is a very challenging situation or aspect of living in society and in our city to look at because it involves so many people.
I saw on social media the next day, some people had ideas of regrouping all the different services in one area. Sadly there’s no one body that can direct that and make that happen.
Yes, the city has a part to play, the province, the federal government, the different agencies in town as well.
I think the first part is communicating, and sharing ideas was the perfect way to do it. We had more than 200 people that were there, so it was a really positive meeting.
Rob: I think everybody can empathize with business owners downtown and business managers downtown, who get a little frustrated with people coming into their facilities, wanting to use washrooms, and things when they’re for the customers. Certainly, you can see things from their side as well.
Maryse: We don’t often hear from business owners that don’t have an issue in the downtown. So, it’s a multifaceted issue that we are dealing with, for sure.
We are sadly not immune to some of the issues that are happening worldwide, but what we’ll do is have discussions (like the one with) Council last night on the next steps.
Administration will bring one or two reports to council on things that are within our jurisdiction and our responsibility.
There were some good ideas on public washrooms. Is that feasible? How much is it? How can we make that happen? That’s one thing we heard, and I think the different levels of government also heard more from the population.
Rob: Are our MLA’s and our Member of Parliament engaged with this issue?
Maryse: They are, our MLA and Minister McLeod were present at the event. The different organizations in town, whether we’re talking Square One, John Howard Society, many different entities were there.
Rob: So where do we go from here?
Maryse: That’s a great question, because as we mentioned at the public meeting, it is a time to share information and for Council and administration to learn. It is not binding, the discussion, there were no decisions made that night, and for council and administration, there’s no real requirement following the public meeting. It was a time to understand the situation even more and to inform our future decisions.