SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The city is considering a behaviour bylaw after council held its final strategic planning session for the coming term last week.
City council held a four-hour meeting at city hall on April 29 at which the item was one of a number of issues being pegged by administration as priority action items for the coming term.
Such a bylaw would be one way to attempt to revitalize the downtown through increased enforcement against such offensive displays as urinating, spitting and defecating in public.
Whether that means increasing municipal enforcement powers or finding ways to improve the RCMP presence downtown remains uncertain, and council and the mayor are stressing it is very early in the process.
Mayor Mark Heyck said a full definition of the bylaw will not be attempted until at least the middle of their three-year term.
"In the interim, it is early in terms of there hasn't been a definition of what a behavioural bylaw might look like until it potentially comes forward to council," said Heyck. "So it is a fairly vague concept at the moment and there hasn't been an opportunity to research what other communities are doing or understand how effective it would be or what kind of resources it would require."
While some councillors were open to discussing the issue, some weren't at this point, despite Monday's meeting being open to the public.
"I am not going to say anything about that," said Linda Bussey, who chairs the city's social issues committee. "I just don't think we should be addressing that because we haven't had the discussion at council. There was some discussion at the strategic planning session, but there has been no followup to that."
Coun. Dan Wong said council seems to agree that there are public behavioural problems in the downtown that have to be addressed, however they are split on whether to create a bylaw that addresses broader sociological issues and root causes like addictions and homelessness.
"I am very much on the side of looking at the big picture together and at root causes," he said. "We need to look at root causes and need to have a comprehensive plan going forward. Not to say (a bylaw) isn't a potentially valuable part, but it is a complicated issue."
Coun. Rebecca Alty was the only councillor to reference another jurisdiction, the City of Calgary, which has a public behaviour bylaw.
According to that city's bylaw, fighting, defecating, urinating, spitting, loitering "that obstructs other people" are all prohibited. The bylaw also outlaws standing on public tables, benches, planters and sculptures and bans people from carrying visible knives. According to the City of Calgary website, fines range from $50 to $300.
Alty said she wants to ensure that with any bylaw the city passes, the municipal enforcement division (MED) has the resources and capability of actually enforcing it. Currently, MED is limited when it comes to dealing with poor behaviour at municipal facilities such as the library.
"When you look at the behavioural bylaw of Calgary, it deals with spitting and defecating and urinating and I am unclear on what the fine is there or how it is dealt with. A lot of that stuff is already in the Criminal Code - although possibly not spitting," she said.
"So it almost seems a little redundant to have a bylaw, but we will see when it comes to council. I would have to look at other jurisdictions. "
Lydia Bardak, who sat on council for two terms and is close to the social issues scene in the downtown core, said there is only so much the municipal enforcement department can do to deal with bad behaviour. Rather than adding more to the plate of MED, Bardak said the answer is effective lobbying of other orders of government to put in place proper social programming for those most in need.
"The interesting thing about municipal enforcement is they really focus on traffic infractions," she said. "With my experience on council, what I often found was if you started to talk about, is the littering bylaw being enforced? Or is the unsightly property being enforced? - because of the limited number of bylaw officers, three is the most that is ever on shift and they want to be out by the school zones catching people speeding."
