The quiet cuts
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - 0 Comments
Further to this, CBC reported last week that the government will close eight Veterans Affairs offices. Christie Blatchford has reported that military reserve budgets are being slashed. The Canadian Forces recruiting centre in Windsor has closed. And Canada Post is considering service cuts.
Meanwhile, there are new concerns being raised about the end of the Police Officer Recruitment Fund—see previously, The Demise of the Police Officer Recruitment Fund. Vic Toews defends the fund as a “one-time investment.”
In Vancouver, the Kitsilano Coast Guard station was quietly closed last week, apparently to the surprise of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. Global News wonders if the closure has something to do with selling the land the station is located on.
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The demise of the Police Officer Recruitment Fund
By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 23, 2012 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments
There are concerns in northern Ontario about the end of the Police Officer Recruitment Fund—a five-year commitment the Harper government made in 2006. NDP MP John Rafferty is unimpressed.
This past week we also learned of the elimination of the Police Officers Recruitment Fund which was a major federal program designed to help municipalities and provinces recruit police officers. In a backgrounder on the program, Public Safety Canada and Emergency Preparedness Canada offers the following rationale; “The purpose of the Fund is to support the efforts of provinces and territories in recruiting additional front-line police officers nationwide who can target local crimes and make communities safer.” Taking this information into account then, the cancellation of this important fund must therefore mean that the Harper Conservatives have made a conscious decision to eliminate their “support the efforts of front-line police officers nationwide in their work to target local crimes and make our communities safer.“ Seems like a strange decision for a Conservative Party that claims to be the most committed to upholding ‘law and order’ wouldn’t you say?
There were similar concerns raised in Sudbury earlier this year. Alberta Premier Alison Redford called for the fund to be extended when she ran for the Progressive Conservative leadership last year. During the last federal campaign, the NDP proposed doubling the fund and making it permanent.
