City Councillor attending Lapu Lapu festival speaks out on van attack
Watch
Vancouver City Councillor Pete Fry tells CTV Your Morning about his experience attending the festival at the time of the attack.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
28-04-2025
- CTV News
City Councillor attending Lapu Lapu festival speaks out on van attack
Watch Vancouver City Councillor Pete Fry tells CTV Your Morning about his experience attending the festival at the time of the attack.
CBC
22-11-2024
- CBC
Vancouver police seek to increase 2025 budget to $434M
Social Sharing The Vancouver Police Department is asking for an additional $23 million in funding for next year, bringing the VPD's total budget to $434 million. The budget proposal was passed by the Vancouver Police Board on Thursday and will go in front of city council later this month for approval. Addressing the police board, VPD Chief Adam Palmer called the 5.56 per cent increase "extremely reasonable." "We have done a scan across the entire country and we've looked at 18 different agencies in Canada, including our own, and we're in the bottom two or three of all agencies across Canada for budget increases for 2025," said Palmer. The board rejected a less costly budget option of $421 million — $13 million less — that was supported by city staff. Palmer called the city staff recommendation a "keep the lights on" budget that was not adequate to meet the financial needs of the VPD. Green Coun. Pete Fry said if the ABC-majority council votes to accept the police budget, it could jeopardize Mayor Ken Sim's promise to cap the 2025 property tax increase at 5.5 per cent. "There's $13 million that's unaccounted for ... and certainly this new increase is more than what staff has been budgeting for. So it's going to come to a head," said Fry. "It will be challenging to meet that 5.5 per cent, that's for sure." Included in the 2025 budget proposal is $6.6 million to launch a permanent body-worn camera program for frontline VPD officers. The plan would see 812 officers personally assigned a body-worn camera next year, with another 169 cameras put in a pool for use by members who are called out. The board agreed that its finance committee will investigate phasing in the body-worn camera program across a longer timeline. The VPD is expected to end this year $9 million over budget, according to a separate report to the board. Overruns were attributed to many factors, including higher overtime costs from protests related to the Israel-Hamas war, planning costs for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and officers assisting in a city-led removal of a tent encampment from Hastings Street. Crime in Vancouver continues to trend lower in 2024 compared to last year across all four Vancouver patrol districts, according to a VPD report to the board. The Public Safety Indicators Report for the third quarter of 2024 said violent crime was down 6.8 per cent from the same time period last year, and property crime was down 13.6 per cent with a 24.2 per cent decrease in break-and-enters.
CBC
24-10-2024
- CBC
City of Vancouver to consider giving police access to traffic cameras
Vancouver council voted Wednesday to consider giving the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) access to the city's traffic camera network. The plan, put forth by Coun. Brian Montague, a former VPD spokesperson, and Coun. Peter Meiszner aims to help police investigate crime and respond to incidents faster. "Access to city traffic cameras will provide real-time visual information to help police in managing resources when responding," Montague said. Wednesday's vote is the first step in giving police access to live and historical footage from Vancouver's 221 traffic cameras on an as-needed basis, while responding to events including in-progress crimes, missing persons reports and natural disasters. While advocates for the the plan say it would help police manage their resources and keep people safe, critics say it could violate residents' Charter rights, and their right to privacy. VPD spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison said police welcome the initiative and will work with city staff and the privacy commissioner to develop practices governing the use of any video. "Cameras are useful tools that could assist police in a variety of ways, such as missing persons investigations, collision investigations and serious criminal matters," Addison said in an email. At present, police do not have access to Vancouver's traffic camera network, and its live feed is not recorded and stored for investigations. Other nearby cities already share traffic camera footage with police. In Surrey, police used city surveillance footage in their investigation into the death of Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023. On Wednesday, Coun. Pete Fry raised concerns the motion might infringe on residents' privacy, and would be used to monitor people when they assemble in public. "We don't actually record [traffic camera] footage and I think it would make sense for us to record it," he told The Early Edition on Thursday. "However, I think that if we're going to release it to the police, it should be with a warrant, not just on request." The motion was ultimately changed so city staff would also look into how the plan affected residents' rights. It passed with Fry voting against it. City staff are now scheduled to report the financial, legal and operational implications of the plan by the first quarter of 2025. Right to privacy Aislin Jackson with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association said giving police access to traffic cameras could violate residents' rights against unreasonable search or seizure. Privacy gives people the security to practice freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly without fear of retribution from the state, they added. "What we're contemplating here is collecting a massive amount of information about the daily activities of not just drivers, but also any pedestrians who would be caught by these cameras, people on bicycles," Jackson said. A system that requires police to get a judge's permission before accessing footage, as with search warrants, would infringe upon residents' rights less, they added. "If we don't have the sphere of private life that's free from the intrusion of the state — to be able to experiment, to look silly, to be intimate with our friends and family — then we're not able to live full lives," Jackson said.
