THUNDER BAY — Thunder Bay’s police chief says he’s not hearing concerns about personal safety from residents when he speaks with them, but newly-released results of a commissioned survey show some trepidation among respondents.
Thirty-three per cent of respondents to the Thunder Bay police’s citizen satisfaction and trust survey indicated they felt either “somewhat unsafe” or “very unsafe,” in the city. Those who were 55-plus generally felt safer; as the demographics got younger, people felt less safe, according to the survey results.
The city’s police chief, Darcy Fleury, told the meeting that’s something people aren’t telling him in person.
“The number of people that I've spoken to in this community, (I've) yet to hear one person come to me and tell me how they feel unsafe,” he said, adding that these are coming from one-on-one conversations. “I've spoken with a lot of people in this community, been to a lot of events, and, you know, we have work to do.”
“There's definitely no doubt that there's serious things happening in this community as there are in any other community in the country.”
People who identified having lower incomes also generally felt less safe, the survey results showed.
The survey found that 11 per cent of those surveyed felt “very safe” and those who felt “somewhat safe” came in at 44 per cent. The remaining 13 per cent said they neither felt safe nor unsafe.
The citizen satisfaction survey was done by Zencity, a company that specializes in soliciting community input on behalf of local and regional governments. It canvassed 442 people between Oct. 28 and Dec. 18, 2024; the document said the survey used data from Statistics Canada to get a proper balance of the city’s demographics around race, ethnicity, age and gender “ensuring that the sample represents the entire population of the city.”
The results were presented to the Thunder Bay Police Service Board at its March meeting on Tuesday.
Overall, Indigenous people were found to respond that they have a lower sense of safety, said Noah Huber, a survey research analyst who built the report.
“They're also more likely to say that crime has increased, they're a little bit less likely to be willing to contact the police service if they were a victim of crime or they were worried about something,” he told the meeting.
“Also, a little bit less likely to say that the police service works to build relationships with the community, and also a little bit less likely to say that the police service works with the public to address their concerns.”
Distrust in the police has been a longstanding issue among Indigenous people in Thunder Bay. “I am concerned, obviously, that that is an ongoing issue,” police board chair Karen Machado told reporters after the meeting.
“I don't think that any relationship can never be repaired if there's a willingness on both sides.”
“The service and the board clearly have a willingness and I believe the vast majority of the Indigenous community have a willingness too,” Machado continued. “I believe that we can get through that if we work together.”
“I think we need to continue our relationship building, and I think, you know, structuring ourselves with getting that executive director and be able to better focus on the things we need to focus (on) as a board will help us continue and focus on those recommendations, which will help … those relationships.”
Other takeaways from the survey included that just under 50 per cent of respondents felt crime had increased over a 12-month period, that 82 per cent would be either “very willing” or “fairly willing” to contact police if they were a victim of a crime or “were worried about something,” that just over half felt that police officers were “very approachable” or “reasonably approachable” and that 68 per cent felt officers would treat them with respect if they had any kind of contact with them.
Top priorities for police to deal with, according to the survey, included drug use, gangs, theft and break-ins and violence.
Fleury said that the results are good information to have “for us to understand exactly where we're at, some of the work that we're doing.”
“Some of the priorities that we do see as to where we are going … it's kind of our action plan as we go forward and it feeds it as does all the other pieces that we do.”
