The Saskatchewan Party government took aim in Wednesday's provincial budget at one...
When it comes to cowardice, I know of what I speak.
I have hidden under a bed in Central America when a machine gun was chattering a block away; my kneecaps almost shook themselves out of my body when a firing squad formed in front of me after I accidentally drove into a secret military camp in North Africa; I have experienced dissociation syndrome when Nicaraguan national guardsmen beat the stuffing out of me with M-16 rifles (and boy did I hurt when I once again felt my body); and I spent sleepless nights staring at a dark ceiling and listening to every noise when I lived in an area of Bogotá, Colombia, where the police were reputed to be too frightened to go.
I even tense up when I know I am about to keep an appointment with a masseuse and my blood pressure spikes when I am in the doctor's office.
So imagine my surprise to have to read in Macleans Magazine that, after nearly three decades beleiving myself safe in Saskatoon, I am living in Canada's most dangerous city. Not only that, Saskatoon is ranked on a new-age-of-journalism website as among the top 10 most dangerous cities on the planet -- just ahead of London, England, and behind Norilsk, Russia.
I blame my neighbours for keeping me in the dark about my dangerous situation. I have always known them to be trustworthy and friendly, but little did I realize they were concealing their incredible, almost inhuman level of courage. Had they let me in on the peril in which I lived and raised my family (to think that I used to send my kids off to school without an escort; it's a wonder no one absconded with them), I would have moved on long ago.
I also blame Bill Holden and Police Chief Clive Weighill, and a long line of police chiefs before him. Had they not been so diligent in measuring the relative dangers of Saskatoon, logging the statistics, putting officers on the street to catch the bad guys and courting the confidence of victims who otherwise would have suffered in silence, Saskatoon would appear to be much safer.
Holden works in the city's planning department and, for years, he has calculated the quality of life of various Saskatoon neighbourhoods. His work, has gone a long way to allow city hall to address those conditions that researchers insist lead to high crime rates.
It is in large measure thanks to his work that surveys indicate people -- including those living in Saskatoon in what Statistics Canada calculates to be the most crime-ridden neighbourhoods in the country -- feel relatively secure, are satisfied that their concerns will be heard and addressed, and sense they are part of the larger community.
This sense of belonging impacts on Saskatoon's crime statistics in two ways: not only are these citizens more likely to report infractions, the police are more likely to respond to them.
Consider the case of John Worboys, the British taxi driver recently convicted of an extended string of rapes in London. He was able to get away with drugging and assaulting dozens of women for years because the Scotland Yard unit responsible for policing that district considered car thefts a higher priority than sexual assaults.
Read Full Article »