Alberta making changes to Crown prosecutors to fight rise in violent crime
CBC
The Alberta government is making changes to criminal prosecutions to reduce the rise in violent crime.
Justice Minister Mickey Amery says special teams of Crown prosecutors will be formed to focus on violent crime and criminals in Edmonton and Calgary.
Prosecutors will also be given new direction to argue before judges that violent repeat offenders should either be held in custody or be subject to bail rules that will ensure public safety.
"There's an increasing sense that our justice system is not holding criminals publicly accountable for their actions and letting the public suffer the consequences," Amery told a news conference Monday.
"This is simply unacceptable."
The new teams are to be drawn from the existing pool of 300 prosecutors and will specialize in issues plaguing downtown communities, such as drug houses.
Amery also announced the province's 2017 triage protocol for prosecutors is no longer necessary and will be abandoned.
The protocol was implemented to stop cases from being tossed out due to excessive delays. Prosecutors were asked to take resources into consideration when deciding to pursue some cases, including seeking plea deals and considering whether cases were winnable.
The province has hired 50 more prosecutors in recent years, and Amery said the Crown Prosecution Service has assured it can handle the increased workload as the triage protocol is abandoned.
Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis said the changes come with other previously announced supports, including money for 50 new police officers in both Edmonton and Calgary respectively, as well as $5 million for each city to make transit rides safer.
Ellis said the province is tackling root causes of crime through a number of measures, including 10,000 new publicly funded addiction treatment spaces.
But Ellis said residents' immediate needs can't be ignored.
"You have the right to walk down the street without being violently attacked," said Ellis.
"You have a right to take transit without inhaling second-hand crystal meth smoke. And you have a right to walk downtown without being caught between clashes of violent organized crime gangs."
This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and CBC Saskatchewan.
More than 300 patients without housing have gone from Edmonton emergency rooms directly into transitional accommodation since the launch of a unique program in March 2023.
B.C. Ferries says it is replacing its principle model of community feedback, the ferry advisory committee (FAC), which has been the main way the ferry corporation has kept in touch with ferry-reliant communities for over three decades.
The inquest for six inmates at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre heard Tuesday that five of the men died overnight, one of several commonalities noted in testimony by a corrections consultant.
"Our bodies lie, but still we roam" is written on a wooden cross paying tribute to Paul Gilbert and Donna Whyte — the Windsor couple who were fatally hit by a vehicle on Walker Road last week.
In three years, the number of people who are homeless in Waterloo region has doubled a new report says.
P.E.I.'s minister of fisheries says the Maritime oyster industry has sustained another blow after evidence of a new disease was recently found in oysters from Spence Cove, about five kilometres west of the Confederation Bridge in New Brunswick.
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Canadian political leaders can't control the fact that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. Neither can they stop him from threatening to take illogical steps that could hurt American businesses and consumers almost as much as they would hurt Canadians.
A First Nation in southern Alberta is suing the federal government for $1 billion, the latest in a series of lawsuits which argue that annual payments promised in treaties should have been adjusted for inflation.
The oilpatch is reacting to Donald Trump's threats to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods with a mix of concern and skepticism.