4. Public Order and Drug-Trafficking Enforcement

Public order is downstream of everything else in this plan. Every household that holds together is a call the police never get. So is every program that works, and every street that is lit, repaired and watched by neighbours. The better North Bay does upstream, the less it spends here. What still reaches the police should land hardest on the people profiting from the drug trade and the repeat offenders who keep neighbourhoods on edge.

Right now spending is going the other way. North Bay’s 2026 police contribution is $32,386,031, up $2.28 million or 7.58 percent. That increase alone equals about half of the entire $4.5 million rise in the tax levy. If the streets get calmer, residents should see it in that number. The Police Service Board sets priorities and the Chief runs operations. Council’s job is to ask at every budget, in public: are trafficking, repeat offending, property crime and persistent disorder going down? When they do, where do the freed hours go?

Not every call needs an armed officer. Often what residents want is the calm a steady presence brings. Since 2014, North Bay has sent a registered nurse with a police officer on mental-health calls. The next question is which calls need the officer at all. I will ask the Board to report which call types a trained, unarmed responder could take, what that would cost, and how many officer hours it would free for the calls that need them.

Where are the good dads? Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Bay and District runs a whole program for kids still waiting for a mentor. The City should work with them and with local churches, minor sports and the trades schools to bring more men forward to coach, mentor and teach. Their calls for volunteers belong on the Nextdoor page in Plank 2. The Board can remove one obstacle. In North Bay, the vulnerable sector check a mentor needs is not free for volunteers, and it takes about seven weeks or more. Make it free for volunteers with registered youth organizations, and make it faster. It will take steady work. Nothing in this plank will do more.

Recovery for the person who wants out. Consequences for the person making money keeping them there.