Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh held a press conference on Thursday to discuss the end of the Confidence and Supply Agreement between the NDP and Liberals, and the NDP’s positions on matters leading into the next federal election.
CHCH sent a crew to the press conference, and asked Singh:
“There’s a lot of focus now on the election to come. But right now we’re living through a crime wave, shootings in the street in broad daylight. I wanted to ask you about one particular riding, Hamilton Centre, which is represented by the NDP.
Businesses and people say they’re afraid to go outside because of the crime, because of the shootings that’s going on.
What is the NDP doing right now to address this problem?”
Singh responded:
“Thank you for the question.
First, I want to say that this is a serious problem across the country. There are many communities where people are feeling really afraid. And you mentioned Hamilton Centre. I can think of lots of communities across the country where people feel like they’re not safe.
This is a serious concern because people have the right to be safe in their communities, should be able to take public transit, should be able to operate a business in their communities and feel safe.
We know that fixing this problem to create safer communities is a complex one, but it’s one that we can absolutely tackle. There’s a number of areas where we’ve got to get serious about solutions.
One, we know is that when it comes to gun violence, there’s a serious concern about guns getting across the border.
When Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives had the ability to make decisions. They cut investments in border security, made it harder for our men and women that serve on the borders to protect our borders. They made it harder by reducing funding, by reducing staffing levels.
We need to make sure that we are stopping guns from getting into our communities. That’s one absolute step we need to take. We need to make sure that we’re doing everything possible to keep communities safe.
We also need to look at some of the roots of violence and address those with whatever the best evidence is. To keep community safe, we need to use experts advice to ensure that communities and people are able to be able to move freely, operate their businesses safely in wherever they live.”
Video of the question and answer can be viewed on YouTube via CPAC.
Production Details v. 1.0.0 Published: September 8, 2024 Last updated: September 8, 2024 Author: Joey Coleman Update Record v. 1.0.0 original version