I don’t have the answer to Halifax’s problem with street violence, and neither do you. Certainly the mayor doesn’t have the answer, nor the chief of police, nor a random city councillor.
That’s because there’s not likely to be some magic pill that will solve this thing—no single configuration of police deployment, parental supervision, lecturing school marms, throw-away-the-key judges or super tough guy vigilantism will make this thing disappear.
Clearly, this is a societal problem, with multiple causes, and if we can achieve anything at all in terms of violence, it’s going to be a matter of degree, over time, and it’s going to take lots and lots of different approaches. If anyone tells you they have “the” answer, consider them either a liar or a fool, or both.
Which brings me to the guardian angels. I don’t trust them. I never trust people who say they are “protecting” me. Looking south, we see often enough that the perceived need for “protection” leads invariably to a loss of civil liberties, the elevation of evil people to positions of power and the unchecked advancement of private agendas.
Maybe I’m all wet, who knows? If you think I’m wrong, you should argue your case, on all these matters. I’m quite pleased that The Coast is hosting an on-line forum on Halifax violence, and for all its mawkishness and hand-wringing, the mayor’s public meetings on violence serve a similarly useful purpose. We need to have these public conversations, so we can move forward together, as a community.
But here’s the deal: we can’t knowledgably discuss the guardian angel issue, because we don’t have all the information. And we don’t have all the information because the mayor, the police chief and the city council are meeting with the Guardian Angels and discussing their possible deployment in Halifax—in secret.
That’s right: our political and police “leaders” have such contempt for the decision-making ability of the citizenry that they won’t allow us to have full access to what is, after all, a very public issue.
We in the press often crow about limits to access to information and such, and I’m guessing that much of the public simply yawns. It seems like such a narrow media issue. But this particular issue—street violence and the potential use of outside vigilantes—demonstrates the point exactly. There really can’t be a more public issue.
Frankly, I’m still amazed that the mayor, the council and the police, with city attorney approval, think it’s okay to have these secret meetings. It’s not.
The only government business that should even be considered for secret discussion should involve personnel issues, lawsuits and property negotiations, and then only after judicial consideration of the public’s right to know. The default position should be public disclosure, but in Nova Scotia, it’s still wrongly—and in my view, illegally—secrecy.
This article appears in Nov 1-7, 2007.