Dong Hanpeng leads the community to launch a nationwide petition to improve community safety

Today, Dong Hanpeng, a member of Congress for the Northern District of the River Valley, held a press conference in Toronto advocating for stronger measures to improve community safety, announcing support for the national petition initiated by the community, and calling on the federal government to include it as a priority issue in policy discussions.

At the 2024 federal budget resident hearing, Dong Hanpeng had in-depth discussions with voters on issues such as car theft and home invasion robbery, and submitted relevant opinions to then Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, some of which have been adopted. Over the past year, Dong Hanpeng has actively visited multiple community organizations, had in-depth exchanges with residents, and had multiple meetings with the 33rd Division of the Toronto Police Department to jointly explore how to improve community safety.

In recent years, we have heard too many criminal cases such as burglary and shop robbery, which not only damage Toronto's urban image, but also shake residents' confidence in the legislative, law enforcement, and judicial systems, "Dong Hanpeng said." Faced with the federal government's upcoming policy direction to be announced at the end of March, this petition hopes to promote practical action at the federal level and prioritize community safety. This year, Canadian voters will also search for their own political platforms in the election. I hope that community safety can become a top priority in the debates of various parties

The petition proposes the following key suggestions:

Establish a federal community safety infrastructure fund to support private homeowners and small business owners in installing or upgrading security equipment;

Ensure that all homeowners and small businesses can obtain safety improvement measures at a reasonable cost to reduce their economic burden;

Collaborate with provincial and municipal governments to simplify the funding application process and increase publicity efforts to make more residents and businesses aware of and benefit from it;

Support police investigation, simplify the process of obtaining public property surveillance footage, improve law enforcement efficiency, and protect residents' privacy rights during the investigation process;

Introduce and expand federal community crime prevention project funding, with a special focus on youth groups, to reduce their risk of committing crimes;

Provide more targeted funding to enhance the capacity of governments at all levels in law enforcement, judicial systems, and correctional services, in order to form a long-term governance mechanism.

The initiator of the petition, Mohsin Bajwa, said (translated): "Ten years ago, public security was very good, but now it is deteriorating. Not only Chinese shops, but also our South Asian shops have been targeted for robbery, so we have initiated this petition and sincerely thank Councilor Dong for his support

Our store was robbed twice in December. As a merchant, our employees want a safe working environment and also want to create a safe shopping environment for our customers, "said the manager of Chow Tai Fook Jewelry Store in Fairview Mall at a press conference

This petition will end on March 25th. Dong Hanpeng stated that he will submit this petition to the parliament as soon as possible and actively seek opportunities to promote relevant private bills, speak up for community safety, and promote the implementation of practical actions.

Dong Hanpeng called on residents and businesses to actively participate and jointly promote community safety issues, which has attracted widespread attention from the government. He emphasized that only through close cooperation between the government and the community can a safer and more livable living environment be created.

Petition link: https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e -5331