A Victoria councillor says he was missing vital data previously acquired by other councillors that supported a motion he brought to council last week asking staff to look into mechanisms and costs to increase security in Victoria neighbourhoods.
The Stephen Hammond motion was defeated 6-2 (with Coun. Chris Coleman absent from this portion of the meeting), and councillors in opposition stated the motion was based on anecdotal stories and that “policing the way out” of the issue is not enough of a solution.
“Most of what is presented in this motion is anecdotal evidence, and I think that basing policy decisions on anecdotal stories, no matter how distressing it is for the people relaying those experiences, isn’t really the way to create good policy,” Coun. Krista Loughton said at the council meeting.
At the time of the meeting, Hammond said he was in the process of acquiring data to support his motion from the deputy police chief, and was inquiring about which parts of the data he was allowed to share publicly.
After his motion had been defeated, Hammond went through the entire email thread and learned that Couns. Loughton, Jeremy Caradonna and Dave Thompson had been sent the same information back in April, and the rest of council had not been looped in
The data detailed the number of police calls to 19 identified areas, including around encampments and supportive housing sites, in 2022. Among the data is the statistic that 24 per cent of all police calls last year came from these 19 areas around the city.
“What was the trigger for me was when (Coun. Loughton) said, ‘This is all anecdotal information.’ And then we discovered that, in fact, she had a lot more information,” Hammond told Black Press Media.
Loughton told Black Press Media that she and the other councillors asked for data in January after inquiring how much of the police budget was spent on homelessness and supportive housing sites. After learning this data would be too difficult to collect, she asked for the number of calls police had responded to around a number of encampments and supportive housing sites.
The data came back in April, but only the three councillors were copied on the reply from the police chief, who requested they were to keep the data “in-camera.”
“My understanding was that I was not able to share that with anyone,” Loughton said. “I didn’t think that I could share that with my councillor colleagues. VicPD specifically asked that we keep this information in-camera, or confidential, and we respected that.”
But Hammond said he had a different understanding of the in-camera request.
“The confidentiality from the police was really about not telling it to the public — the police were not telling them to keep it from (the rest of council),” he said.
After talking to VicPD deputy chief of operations Jason Laidman, Loughton said they came to the conclusion that while the data should have been shared with the rest of council, there was “a bit of a communication breakdown” on whether it was ultimately the responsibility of the police or the councillors to share it.
“I didn’t realize that it should have been shared with everyone. It slipped Jason Laidman’s mind as well. If I reach out to staff with a question, they respond to all of council, and that’s what should have happened in this situation, but it didn’t,” Loughton said. “I didn’t realize that, so I just didn’t say anything to anyone about it.”
Hammond said he has filed a freedom of information request to make the data accessible to the public. Requests usually take approximately 30 days to come back, and he said he “reserves the right” to release the data on his own terms even without the FOI granted.
Loughton added she agrees the public should have the right to access this information.
Despite the recent controversy, Loughton said she will continue to strive toward a united council and wants to have more conversations with other councillors outside of council chambers to prevent further division.
“This isn’t a time for divisive politics that takes us away from our important work,” she said. “If we divide, then the city divides.”