‘There’s a lot of frustration in there’
City hosts engagement meeting to give business owners chance to voice concerns about escalating crime; lax criminal law, housing, addictions, treatment centre all cited as factors
Contributing factors to a growing crime problem in downtown Fredericton were as varied as those attending a closed engagement session with city officials Tuesday.
Participants voiced concerns about an addictions-treatment centre on King Street, homelessness, lacking mental-health services and cheap drugs, but a recurring refrain emerged: the federal government needs to toughen up the Criminal Code of Canada.
Almost 300 business operators and community leaders gathered Tuesday to meet with Fredericton city hall and police officials at “a community safety business stakeholder meeting” Tuesday morning at the Crowne Plaza Fredericton Lord Beaverbrook hotel.
The session was closed to the media, but reporters spoke with numerous participants as they filtered out of the hotel’s ballroom at lunchtime.
Matt Savage, owner of Savage’s Bike Shop, said the meeting was positive overall in tone, but he said crime is running rampant in the downtown core and it’s affecting the people who earn their living in the area.
”Our staff are being assaulted,” he said. “It’s a struggle daily.”
Adrian Butts, who owns commercial properties downtown, one of his premises was broken into and burglarized Friday, and one of his tenants went bankrupt because they couldn’t keep up with the costs associated with the crime problem.
“My truck was robbed two weeks ago,” he said. “It’s severe, that’s for sure.”
Butts said while there was little in the way of new information coming from the city and the police force at the meeting, he felt Mayor Kate Rogers articulated the city’s platform on the issues and recognized action is needed.
“I definitely feel businesses were heard,” he said.
Warren Maddox, executive director of the Fredericton Homeless Shelters Inc., said Tuesday’s meeting revealed both positives and negatives about the complex circumstances.
“There’s a lot of frustration in there,” he said, adding there was also common ground in that everyone seemed to share “a really deep, deep commitment to downtown.”
Maddox said the meeting wasn’t so much about blame, but about what needs to be done now.
“We’re reaping the rewards of 30 years of neglect,” he said, noting institutions and society buried their heads in the sand for a generation.
“Really, the overall message is that we’re all responsible.”
Mayor Kate Rogers, when speaking with reporters at city hall after the meeting, said she could feel the frustration and exasperation in the room.
It was important to give people a chance to express those concerns, she said, and to let them know city hall is listening.
But it was also vital for the city and police to provide context for the situation and updates on what’s being done, the mayor said, as not everyone has the information necessary to appreciate what’s causing the issues and what can be done to address them.
“It’s something that’s been bubbling and festering,” she said.
Rogers said some people seemed to express relief over the chance to be part of the conversation, while others felt it’s all been said before.
Major social issues - including homelessness, mental health and addictions - are driving the criminal behaviour, Savage said, and those are major ones with which government and society must wrestle.
“It’s a long-term issue,” he said, adding that there’s “low-hanging fruit” - measures that can be instituted in the short-term - that police and government officials should take.
“We’re making it too easy for these people to be here,” Savage said, calling on police to remove negative elements off city streets. “Arrest, arrest, arrest.”
Restaurateur Mike Babineau said members of the Fredericton Police Force do their best to protect citizens and business in the downtown area, but there’s only so much they can do.
“Their hands are tied,” he said, noting changes to federal laws to toughen criminal sanctions are what’s needed.
“We’re too soft on crime. It sounds heartless, but something’s got to be done.”
Butts said those attending the meeting expressed a lot of support for the police force and the efforts officers make to provide safety and security.
The problem, he said, is what happens afterward in the courts, arguing there’s “a lack of consequence” for the people plaguing downtown businesses.
“I think they’re equally frustrated,” Butts said of the police.
Complaints about courts, Criminal Code
Adam Peabody, executive director of Downtown Fredericton Inc., the business improvement area organization that represents businesses in the core of the city, said amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada, enacted in 2019, loosened laws government how the justice system interacts with defendants, creating a “catch-and-release” approach for those accused of offences.
He said they’ve reached “a point of crisis for downtown businesses,” and the 2019 changes to criminal law need to be re-examined.
Peabody said the meeting with city and police officials was tense.
“I think we had a really direct conversation,” he said. “At this point, we are demanding action from all levels of government.”
Maddox agreed the 2019 changes to the Criminal Code were a setback, describing the changes that flowed from Bill C-75 as “problematic.”
Fredericton police Chief Gary Forward, speaking with reporters at city hall after the meeting, said the legislative changes created by Bill C-75 have proved to be challenging for policing, but he rejected the notion that officers are frustrated with those changes.
“The police do not have the luxury of getting frustrated with this,” he said.
The chief also dismissed the notion that the courts and prosecutors aren’t doing enough to back up policing efforts once cases go to the justice system.
He said the province’s policing community has a strong dialogue with deputy attorney general Brian Munn, who oversees prosecution services in New Brunswick.
The Crown prosecutors and the judiciary are contending with the same changes to the Criminal Code as police, Forward said.
It’s vital for Ottawa to be part of these discussions in Fredericton and elsewhere, Rogers said, because part of what’s needed is a strengthening of laws to empower police and the courts.
“I think it became incredibly evident that not all of this falls at the feet of the city,” she said.
“We cannot change federal legislation. We cannot open facilities to care for people.”
The River Stone conundrum
Savage also called on the city and the province to move social-services providers out of the business sector.
Among them, he said, is the River Stone Recovery Centre on King Street.
“I think that’s one key component,” he said.
A cluster of social-services providers downtown - including River Stone - is attracting an unstable element to the area, Peabody said, and one solution would be to move them.
It’s been suggested that River Stone be moved over to the Victoria Health Centre at the corner of Brunswick Street and Woodstock Road, at least temporarily, he said.
A centralization of social services away from the city’s business-improvement areas is something that should be considered, the Downtown Fredericton director said.
Misty McLaughlin, River Stone’s recently hired executive director, doesn’t think the facility’s presence and clientele is the cause of the problems, but she wasn’t surprised when people expressed concerns.
“We expected that,” she said.
She and others from River Stone attended Tuesday’s meeting and had hoped to address those gathered, but she said city hall officials felt with emotions running high, it wasn’t the right time for that.
There’s misinformation about the addictions-treatment centre out there, McLaughlin said, and misconceptions.
It’s not a safe-injection site, she said, and clients are carefully screened and tested to ensure compliance with treatments.
Where River Stone likely went awry, McLaughlin said, but in failing to communicate better with its neighbours. It partnered well with other social-services operations, such as Youth in Transition, she said, but it didn’t really connect with the larger downtown Fredericton community.
Stronger communication and education about River Stone’s work is something on which she hopes to focus, she said, noting she’s open to suggestions on how the facility can work with businesses to improve its influence in the area.
Dr. Sara Davidson, the physician who spearheads River Stone and its treatment efforts, is open to moving to the Victoria Health Centre, McLaughlin said, but moving social services alone won’t eliminate the issues people are seeing.
Rogers said city hall has taken the message about possibly moving River Stone to the Victoria Health Centre to the provincial government, but it’s not a viable part of the solution.
“That building is full,” she said.
The city has asked the Department of Social Development to refrain from locating any additional social services in the heart of the city’s business sectors, the mayor said.
McLaughlin said River Stone is fulfilling an important mission in the city, and getting rid of it altogether will make things worse, as those who are being treated successfully would likely relapse and slide back into destructive patterns.
“If we go away, the problems get more and more [pronounced],” she said.
Mental illness meets cheap highs
“Mental health is probably at the core of it,” Maddox said.
When one throws meth and fentanyl into that context, he said, it makes for a raging firestorm of chaos.
“It’s more violent and more volatile than it’s ever been,” the shelter director said
Forward said the nature of street drugs today - specifically meth and fentanyl - are what’s exacerbating the crimes that affect downtown businesses.
These drugs are cheap and easy to access, he said, but they also are volatile and create behavioural problems in users.
Opiate users would tend to become more sedate while under the influence of their drugs of choice, the chief said, whereas those on meth and fentanyl can be unpredictable.
While Tuesday’s meeting was scheduled earlier last month, it’s likely to have taken on a greater sense of urgency and interest after a fire the night of Oct. 29 at MacTavish’s Source for Sports on Queen Street.
The blaze caused extensive damage, and the business is expected to be closed for some time pending repairs and refurbishment.
Furthermore, the boarded-up store was hit by another crime in the wake of the fire, as the Fredericton Police Force confirmed that there was a break-in at MacTavish’s in the early-morning hours of Sunday.
Police spokesperson Sonya Gilks said a 38-year-old man was arrested and released on conditions and a promise to appear in court at a later date.
Maggie MacTavish, co-owner of the sporting-goods store, said the business has operated in its downtown location for decades, but recent events have her questioning if it’s worth the trouble to reopen at its longtime location.
In an interview on the weekend, she said she was considering a possible move to the city’s northside.
Meanwhile, police arrested a suspect in the fire - which was determined to have been set deliberately - on Oct. 30.
Joshua Daniel Grant Burden, 49, of no fixed address, was charged with arson and breach of probation, and he was remanded last week pending a bail hearing.
That bail hearing got underway Monday and is set to continue Thursday.
As the Fredericton Independent reported previously, Burden had appeared in Fredericton provincial court Oct. 28 - the day before the fire - for a bail hearing on charges of uttering threats and breaching his probation, and a judge ruled at the conclusion of that hearing that his detention wasn’t justified.
He was released on conditions at that time.
Burden is representing himself at his latest bail hearing, and during Monday’s proceeding, he argued repeatedly with a police witness and the presiding judge, and he occasionally went off on profanity-laden rants.
He remains in custody at the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre pending the outcome of his bail hearing.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.
Not much point in locking someone up for a few months, without any real treatment and support. They'll just go back to previous life. Everyone keeps saying that more mental health and drug addiction treatments plus housing are needed, but no one wants to pay for it. But I'll bet those are the cheapest solutions.
As Maddox said, 30 years of ignoring the situation has come home to roost. Add in that the drugs have become stronger and their influence is more destructive we have a serious problem. Locking them up might clean uo the streets for a minute, but they'll get filled again with the next generation. To get these people clean and functional requires a lot more time and effort.