ABBOTSFORD STILL SAFE DESPITE CRIME STATISTICS

Abbotsford's geography unfortunately is making it a convenient place
for criminals to operate.

We should not be shocked by the Stats Can report that pegs Abbotsford
as a city with an unenviable crime rate.

We should not feel unsafe walking down the streets at night, but at
the same time we should expect that our city administration and
police force realize they have much work to do -- particularly in
addressing the area of property crime, where Abbotsford is the crime
capital of Canada.

The Abbotsford Police say rising drug abuse correlates with an
overall increase in crime. The drug crime in B.C. dwarfs that of most
provinces. Looking at Stats Can's drug offence statistics, B.C., with
a population of 4.25 million has almost the same number of cannabis
offences as Ontario with a 12.5 million population.

This is hardly surprising to anyone passingly familiar with our
province's notoriety for B.C. Bud. However the same statistics show
that this province's cocaine offences number greater than even much
larger Ontario, which ranks second. About one-third of Canada's
cocaine offences happened in B.C. in 2005.

Worse yet, three-quarters of the nation's heroin offences occurred in
B.C., in 2005.

Because of its cheaper housing prices, the Abbotsford-Mission census
metropolitan area (CMA) has seen an explosion in the number of
grow-ops here. Drugs have been coming to Abbotsford, and crime has followed.

The News, with the cooperation of the Abbotsford Police, reports the
serious crime that happens in Abbotsford and Mission. We can say that
shootings and homicides are almost always drug related, or the result
of domestic violence. If you're not involved in the drug trade, it is
highly unlikely you will be shot at.

We remain convinced that ours is a safe community in which to live,
but clearly the authorities must do more to reduce the drug trade,
and thereby limit property crime.