Burlington Mayor’s Speaker Series Focuses on Policing, Safety, and Community Well-Being

By: Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Burlington Local-News.ca

 

Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward hosted an installment of her Speaker Series on April 21, as part of the Innovation to Action initiative.

 

She opened the event with a discussion of Sir Robert Peel’s Principles of Policing, which she said was adopted as the “philosophy that many police forces, including our very own Halton Regional Police, are really inspired by.”

 

“Sir Robert Peel was really considered the father, if you will, of modern policing in the UK when they were developing during the Industrial Revolution, with very fast, rapid growth in the urban cities.” She noted that this kind of expansion mirrors what is currently happening in Burlington.

 

Meed Ward also spoke about the Community Safety and Well-Being in Halton plan, emphasizing that more police on the streets doesn’t necessarily mean a safer community.

 

“One of the principles [of the plan] is that it’s the absence of crime, not the visible evidence of police, that actually makes a safer community,” she explained.

 

Meed Ward noted that Burlington is the safest region in the country. “That’s a testament to that philosophy of policing and the great work that our police officers do.”

 

One of Meed Ward’s key points of pride is the city’s Community Outreach and Support Team (COAST). “We were a leader in this area. It’s now fairly commonplace in police services,” she said. “COAST social workers will go with police on mental health calls, because a huge number of calls that our police service responds to are mental health-related or have a mental health-related component. So having somebody who has skill in that area, doing ride-alongs, has been critical to success.”

 

She also highlighted indicators the city uses to determine how well it’s doing in terms of health, safety, and well-being. “Twenty percent of Halton residents are food insecure,” she said. “That’s a staggering number. That’s one in five people in this room. That number has increased from 10% in 2021.”

 

    

    The talk took place in the Studio Theatre at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre. Attendance was free of charge.

 

Meed Ward thanked the various Halton food banks for trying to combat these increases in food insecurity.

 

“Halton Region has found that low-income households spend between 41 to 141% of their income on shelter, leaving little to no money to purchase nutritious food,” Meed Ward added. “So people are going into debt to have a roof over their head and good food on the table.”

 

Meed Ward said that Burlington measures 31.2 on the Crime Severity Index (CSI) and “consistently ranks lowest out of the Big 12 police services, which includes Peel, Toronto, York and London, among others.”

 

According to Constantini, CSI is the most objective measure of safety. “How it works is they take the amount of crime that a municipality experiences every year, and they attribute a value or a weight to that crime,” he said. “So, for example, a homicide would have the highest value, say a thousand, whereas a shoplifting might have one of the lowest values, say of 10, and they take the sentencing for those types of crimes, and put it into a formula and punch out a number. We’ve had the lowest crime severity index for about 25 years in all of Canada.”

 

Homelessness is another measure of a community’s well-being, though figures are difficult to track. Meed Ward described Burlington’s numbers as concerning.

 

“As of the recent data that we have from the best sources that we can find, we have 343 individuals in Burlington who are experiencing homelessness at any given time,” Meed Ward said. “It does fluctuate as people move through and around communities, but that was the measure between October and November of 2024. So we suspect that number may be higher now.”

 

Halton Region’s emergency shelter is currently operating at 40% capacity. “There are steps being taken,” Meed Ward said, as council is working with Indwell on a proposed 74-bed supportive housing project on Waterdown Road.

 

“It’s not finalized quite yet, but we understand the need, and we are working with our partners at the region and at the province where we can…we also used some federal Housing Accelerator Fund dollars to make that happen.”

 

Meed Ward also pointed to the last two police budget increases in Burlington as “quite significant,” at 14.2% in 2024 and 8% in 2025. “We were on the low side compared to municipalities like Peel that saw increases in the 20% range, but it was affecting all of Ontario,” Meed Ward said.

 

    

    The event was preceded by a tradeshow in the BPAC lobby featuring various community organizations.

 

The model of funding those increases through property taxes is not sustainable, Meed Ward noted.

 

“We did ask the province for additional funding for municipal and regional police services similar to what other communities get for OPP,” Meed Ward said. “There was some funding provided for targeted support, for example, addressing organized crime as well as synthetic fentanyl production, and there’s a priority on mental health, wellness, and long-term support.”

 

She added that Burlington will be building a new courthouse in the city to replace the previous one, which can no longer hear cases.

 

Meed Ward then invited Constantini to speak about broader crime trends in the city.

 

According to data collected from January 1 to April 10, 2026, commercial break-and-enters, auto theft, theft from vehicles, and impaired driving are all on the decline. Only robberies are trending upwards. Suicide and mental health and addictions (MHA) calls are still the second largest category for emergency calls, despite trending lower overall.

 

Constantini also teased a positive development in the investigation regarding recent jewellery store robberies in the city. “I think you’ll be happy to hear in the coming days, maybe weeks, about the success of that investigation,” he said.

 

Jessome then spoke about the work that Crime Stoppers does in the city. He highlighted the fact that while Crime Stoppers offers a $2000 cash incentive for tips that lead to a charge or arrest, only 9% of callers actually collect the money.

 

“Why is that?” Jessome asked rhetorically. “It’s because people care about their community. They want to do what’s right for their neighbours.”

 

Jessome also spoke about a new Community Watch pilot project that has been launched in Bentivegna’s Ward 6. According to the Crime Stoppers of Halton website, the Community Watch program is “an organized group of volunteers and residents who work together to share information on home safety, and be kept aware of ongoing crime trends in your neighbourhood. Working together with your neighbours, we can reduce crime through awareness and vigilance.”

 

A full rollout across Halton Region is planned for 2027. “That means free lawn signs, stickers, information seminars, organized barbecues, and community events. More importantly, we also have a lot of vendors throughout the city that we’ve partnered with. Just by the bare mention of saying you’re with the Community Watch program or Crime Stoppers, you will earn a discount,” he added.

 

The event concluded with a panel discussion and Q&A where attendees could submit questions via a Slido link. One attendee asked if HRP are looking to install cameras in high-crime areas that have a direct link to police.

 

“I think that’s probably likely to happen,” Constantini said. “I think there are CCTV capabilities and traffic cameras pretty much everywhere already.  But I do think that’s always going to be a topic of conversation.”

 

The session highlighted the city’s ongoing focus on measuring community safety through a mix of policing data, social indicators, and community-based responses.