Dilkens, police board hear push for aid with blockade costs
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Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens is adamant the federal and provincial governments will chip in for the costs of the $5.7 million blockade of the Ambassador Bridge, he said Thursday in an update to the police services board.
“The response provided by the Windsor police service and all those policing agencies who came here to Windsor to help support was outstanding,” said Dilkens, who is also the chair of the police services board.
“But at the end of the day, the entire cost of helping solve this national economic emergency is falling on the back of Windsor taxpayers.”
The cost of the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge totals about $5.7 million, the city has said – including policing costs, accommodation and transportation, as well as physical barriers and other costs related to controlling the protest that closed the Ambassador Bridge for a week in February.
Correspondence from the City of Windsor about the costs of the bridge protests was included in Thursday’s board agenda and a response from Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy that noted pandemic-related funding the city received, but stopped short of committing to blockade-related expenses.
In response to a question from Ward 3 Coun. Rino Bortolin – who noted the response letter “conflates” provincial aid programs – Dilkens said the city has not received any other responses either provincially or federally.
Dilkens said the city was right to look for federal and provincial support in dealing with the “national economic emergency.”
“I think it’s fair to say all of the conversations that I’ve had, there was a recognition that this was an atypical municipal response, that there should be some support from higher levels of government,” Dilkens said. “It’s just no one’s jumping forward to say ‘here’s a cheque.'”
But as the city starts to pay the bills, Dilkens said they’re not giving up on getting funding from other levels of government.
“If we don’t hear a response in short order, we will start to amplify our requests and make sure that everyone understands that we’re being forgotten down here,” he said. “I don’t think that’s the intention of either the federal or provincial governments at this point. But we need their attention sooner rather than later to help resolve the expenses that were occurring.”
Following Thursday’s police services board meeting, Acting Chief Jason Bellaire said they did not have any further information to release about the ongoing hunt for a suspect involved in the shooting at Super Bowl Lanes last Saturday.
But the board did hear new information about youth diversion programs that aim to keep youth out of the justice system for non-violent minor offences. while the programs are voluntary – youth have to opt-in – Bellaire said Windsor police have been encouraging use of the program more often, in part sparked by police board members.
“If we can have that intervention up front and connect these youth to meaningful services … these particularly youth have a statistically better chance of not being involved in the adult court system,” Bellaire said.
“Really what we want is some meaningful interruption of someone going in a bad direction, providing that lifeboat to somebody who just needs access to a service, to some treatment, to therapy, whatever it may be.”
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