PUBLIC SAFETY AND BASIC ORDER

PUBLIC SAFETY AND BASIC ORDER.

People should be able to walk to work, wait for a bus, take their kids to school and use a park without stepping around open drug use, needles or repeated disorder. When the same locations keep generating the same problems, the response has to be visible — and residents should be able to see whether it worked.

Start here

Safe streets. A visible response. Results you can check.

Position

Where I stand

Compassion and a usable sidewalk are not opposites. Harm reduction can save lives, but it should be a bridge toward treatment, recovery and stability where those options are appropriate — not the final destination. People in crisis should have somewhere real to go. Open illegal drug use, needles and repeated disorder in public spaces still need a response.

Action

What I would push for

Focus on the places that keep generating complaints: stronger by-law follow-through, faster needle and biohazard cleanup, better lighting and clear responsibility. I would seek appointment to the London Police Service Board and press for clear public priorities and measurable results. I would also formally ask the Province and health-system bodies to show the outcomes and diversion safeguards around prescribed safer-supply programs instead of treating that debate as off-limits to public accountability.

Authority

Who controls what

Council controls municipal budgets, by-law policy, cleanup and other City services. The London Police Service Board sets policing priorities and policies and reviews results; police leadership assigns officers and directs operations. Treatment and much clinical capacity sit with the Province and health system. A councillor can use Council and Board processes, but cannot direct an individual officer or investigation.

Plan

What this looks like in real life

You are waiting for a bus, walking into a business or taking your child through a public space and active illegal drug use, a fire, discarded needles or repeated disorder is happening in front of you. You should not need an organizational chart to figure out whether to call police, transit, by-law, outreach or somebody else. Report it once, make the responsibility clear, deal with the immediate safety issue and make sure the person in crisis has a meaningful next step.

Result

What residents should see

The same locations should not keep producing the same unresolved complaints. Every 30 days, I would publish what changed, what did not, who owns the next step and whether conditions actually improved.

First moves

What I would do first

30 days: put forward the written safety, cleanup and reporting requests and seek the Board measures. 100 days: first public results table and repeat-location review. 12 months: report whether the same locations are safer and cleaner and whether the response produced measurable change.

On the record

I asked the London Police Service Board directly.

I did not want this issue reduced to another campaign talking point. I put the questions in writing twice: first on the Open-Air Substance Use Strategy, then in an October 7 supplemental submission expanding the governance question to transit, transit shelters, sidewalks, parks, business entrances and other shared public spaces.

POLICE BOARD LETTERS

Read the public-safety submissions.

Start with the summary. Choose the letter you want to read, then open the full submission only if you want the complete record.

PUBLIC RECORD · OCTOBER 7, 2026

Supplemental Police Board submission: shared public spaces

This follow-up expands the August request to public transit, transit shelters, sidewalks, parks, business entrances and other shared public places — and asks what the public should expect, who is responsible and how results will be measured.

Evidence & public record

Actions already taken during this campaign.

August 22 / 27, 2026Formal request to the London Police Service Board

The written request is dated August 22 and was submitted to the London Police Service Board on August 27. It asks the Board to explain its policy, what it is trying to achieve, how success is measured and what results the public can see.

The request does not ask the Board or the Chief to direct an individual officer, investigation or deployment. It asks for the basic public answer: what the current approach is supposed to accomplish, how anyone knows whether it is working, what information the Board receives, and which parts belong to policing versus housing, treatment, outreach, bylaw or another public body.

September 17, 2026Attended the Police Service Board's special budget meeting

I attended the Board’s September 17 special budget meeting at Police Headquarters. That matters because public-safety accountability is also a budget question: what residents are funding, what results are being measured, and what the Board and Chief can show publicly about performance.

October 7, 2026Supplemental governance submission on shared public spaces

I filed a second submission asking what the public should reasonably expect when active illegal substance consumption occurs on transit, in transit shelters, on sidewalks, in parks, at business entrances and in other shared public places.

It asks for clear responsibility, measurable outcomes, repeat-demand reporting and an escalation path when the underlying gap is treatment, recovery, stabilization, housing, shelter or another service outside policing.

October 15, 2026Return to the Board and Chief through the public process

I intend to attend the Board’s October 15 meeting and raise the unanswered questions through the Board’s public participation process. The goal is a clear public answer on policy, performance measures, reporting and responsibility — not operational direction to individual officers.

What happens after thatPublish the answer and identify the next responsible body

I will publish the response and spell out who owns the next move: the Police Service Board, Council, by-law, housing, treatment, health care or another level of government.

Official public-safety tools

Check the public record yourself.

London Police ServiceSee recently mapped incidents near you

The London Police Service public crime map shows mapped incidents from the last 90 days and can be filtered by date, location and crime type. LPS notes that map locations are shifted for privacy and that the map is a public-information tool, not the official crime-statistics record.

Open the London Police Service Crime Map →

Official statisticsGo to the formal LPS reports and statistics

For official crime statistics and published police reports, use the London Police Service reports and statistics section rather than treating the public map as the final statistical record.

Open LPS Reports and Statistics →

Report an incidentUse the proper police reporting channel

If a crime is happening now or someone is in immediate danger, call 9-1-1. For eligible non-emergency incidents, London Police Service also provides online reporting and a non-emergency phone line.

See London Police Service reporting options →

Downtown overnight noise

Emergency response has to stay safe. Downtown residents should still be able to sleep.

The issueI live on Dundas Street. I hear it too.

Downtown comes with activity, and emergency responders have to move quickly and safely. But repeated sirens through the night and construction starting before permitted hours are legitimate quality-of-life concerns. The answer should not simply be, “You live downtown, get used to it.”

What I would put forwardMeasure it, separate the legal issues, and review what can safely change.

I would bring forward a Downtown Overnight Noise and Emergency Response Review. It would separate construction-noise enforcement from emergency-response noise, request the overnight response data that can lawfully be reported, identify repeat locations and corridors, document the legal requirements for warning devices, and ask the responsible services and boards whether any safe operating practices could reduce unnecessary overnight noise without compromising response times or public safety.

What the law actually saysConstruction and emergency sirens are not the same issue.

London prohibits construction noise that is clearly audible in a residential area between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. — or until 9:00 a.m. on Sunday — unless a lawful permit or exemption applies. Police, fire and ambulance vehicles performing their duties are expressly exempt from the City Sound By-law. Ontario road-safety law also governs emergency-vehicle warning equipment and emergency driving privileges.

The route to actionUse the authority that actually exists.

For construction, the City can enforce its own Sound By-law. For fire, Council can ask London Fire Services and Civic Administration for data and practice review. Police questions must go through the London Police Service Board governance process. Middlesex-London Paramedic Service has its own municipal service board, with one City of London councillor in its current five-member structure. I would use those channels, publish the answers, and be clear about anything that requires provincial change.

Open Draft Council Action 24 — Downtown Overnight Noise and Emergency Response Review →

Clean Canada

The fight against fentanyl starts in our own communities.

Change does not happen by sitting around waiting for someone else to act. It happens when ordinary people are willing to stand up, speak out and put in the work.

Every conversation we start and every person we reach helps spread the message: we need real solutions to addiction. We need prevention. We need treatment and recovery. And we need action.

This is what the Clean Canada message means to me — bringing people together and pushing for a better response to the addiction and fentanyl crisis affecting families and communities across this country.

This is not about looking away from people in crisis. It is about refusing to accept that managing addiction is the best we can do.

People deserve a path forward. Communities deserve to feel safe.

Safer supply

Saving lives and asking hard questions are not opposites.

My positionI do not support take-home controlled opioids being treated as successful just because they were dispensed.

Safer-supply programs are intended to reduce overdose risk. My concern is what happens after the medication leaves the pharmacy: what safeguards exist against diversion, what happens when diversion is suspected, whether people are moving toward treatment, recovery, housing and stability, and whether publicly funded controlled drugs are ending up in the illegal street market.

I would ask the Province and the appropriate health-system and regulatory bodies for the evidence and publish the answer. City Council does not regulate medical prescribing, so I will not pretend it does. But that does not mean residents should be told they are not allowed to ask whether a publicly funded program is working and whether its safeguards are strong enough.

The numbers

What we're paying, and what we can see.

$186.7M

Net policing cost in 2025

London Police Service Board, 2025 Annual Report.

34,000+

Targeted patrol visits in 2025

The Board reports more than 34,000 targeted patrol visits and more than 22,000 hours at locations identified through crime data and community concerns.

760

Open-air strategy referrals, Apr–Aug 2025

City of London 2026 State of the City reporting also listed 2,911 calls for service, 1,350 police reports and 1,297 seizures for that period.

Where to go next.

Continue

What the funding actually bought, tracked What I’ll do about it

BISSON13 · Ward 13