Everyone should feel safe in their community. We are providing more resources for law enforcement to tackle crime, combat repeat offending, and keep weapons out of our communities. As we experience more frequent and severe emergencies like storms, floods, and wildfires, we are working with First Nations and local government to reduce risk, put emergency plans in place, and improve resilience.
Public Safety | Emergency Management
- Giving police more resources to combat repeat violent offending through the Special Investigation and Targeted Enforcement (SITE) program.
- Enhancing tools, technology and investigative resources for police to help curb crimes like shoplifting and property damage in downtown areas.
- Taking action to keep at-risk youth out of gangs by:
- Expanding the ERASE anti-bullying program that trains teachers and parents to identify and stop harmful behaviours.
- Doubling funding for the Surrey WRAP program.
- Created a new Integrated Gang Homicide Team (IGHT) in the Lower Mainland. The team will focus on investigating gang-related homicides to hold individuals accountable and disrupt gang activity.
- Allocated $300,000 in funding to community organizations for prevention and intervention programs for perpetrators of domestic violence.
- Took action against money laundering by moving the Province’s gambling regulator to the new independent gambling control office (IGCO), and provided it with greater independence to set and enforce regulatory gambling policy.
- Tasked an all-party legislative committee to review the Police Act, and make recommendations on how it can be modernized to reflect today’s challenges and opportunities for delivering police services with a specific focus on systemic racism.
- Established the Provincial Forensic Firearms Lab.
- Expanded and increased the capacity of Community Transition Teams.
- Passed the Firearm Violence Prevention Act.
- Created the Repeat Violent Offender Intervention Initiative with 12 regional hubs. This is supported by the new Special Investigation and Targeted Enforcement (SITE) program.
- Funded a record number of RCMP officers – filling vacancies across the province.
- Passed Unexplained Wealth Order Legislation to make sure criminals don’t profit from crime.
- Implemented the Safer Communities Action Plan, which included a new Virtual Bail Processes and expanded Situation Tables in communities across the province.
- Pushed for federal amendments to the Criminal Code to address repeat violent offending.
- Passed the Intimate Images Protection Act to help people who have had their intimate images shared without their consent to get the images removed from the internet more quickly.
- Funding to support transition to NextGen 911.
- Expanding access to benefits for victims of violent crime, their family members, and witnesses.
- Preventing people who are convicted of dangerous offences from legally changing their name.
- Implemented the most comprehensive and progressive emergency management framework in Canada with the Emergency and Disaster Management Act, which incorporates lessons learned from recent emergencies and reflects modern risks and realities, including climate change and transmissible diseases, such as COVID-19.
- Addressed nearly all of the recommendations in the Abbott-Chapman report to improve how BC prevents, prepares for, responds to, and recovers from wildfires and floods.
- Provided more than $279 million to local governments and First Nations through the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund for more than 2,000 projects to help them prepare for and mitigate the risk of disasters, plan evacuation routes and notification systems, and support people during emergencies.
- Modernized the Emergency Support Services (ESS) system to allow for digital applications by evacuees.
- Invested $18.6 million in BC Search and Rescue organizations to help with training, equipment and administration—the biggest single investment in SAR in BC history.
- Upgrading and expanding our firefighting aviation and ground fleet, as well as equipment for ground crews, with an investment of nearly $16 million.
- Opening the door for more people with crucial local knowledge to join the BC Wildfire Service, to better protect people, homes and communities.