The growing immigrant population has become an integral part of Burnaby and some worry the city and police aren’t doing enough to connect with these new Canadians.
According to the 2011 national census, the population of visible minorities reached 59 per cent of the total population with 53 per cent of the total population reporting their mother tongue as neither English nor French.
Burnaby’s community policing committee met with foreign language media last week in the hopes of forging a connection with the large population of new Canadians.
“The committee is trying to disseminate initiatives to keep people safe,” said Diane Gillis, chair of the policing committee’s communications sub-committee.
Gillis, president of the Kingsway Imperial Neighbourhood Association, told attending media she was concerned new Canadians weren’t as well informed about crime prevention and safety practices as those born in Canada.
“The committee is struggling to get information out to the immigrant community,” she told reporters from Ming Pao News, Korean Newsand World Journal at the Nov. 28 meeting.
Gillis added she’d like to see more safety and crime prevention tips included in the foreign language newspapers – but crime prevention isn’t news, countered the reporters.
City Coun. Pietro Calendino and Burnaby RCMP Staff Sgt. Maj. John Buis agreed with reporters.
The real concern should be finding an effective way to get the safety and crime prevention information to new Canadians, Buis said.
“It’s about determining what’s meaningful to these communities,” he added. “We need to understand our clients better.”
This means understanding what’s important to the immigrant community and what information would serve them best, Buis said.
Gillis stressed the committee should be building trust between new Canadians and the police so they can feel safe in their new community.
The policing committee publishes a quarterly crime prevention column in Burnaby’s municipal newsletter, InfoBurnaby. The columns include a variety of safety tips, phone numbers to call in an emergency and how to report a crime.
For the most recent InfoBurnaby newsletter click here.
