Northumberland County to become a Safe Community

By Shelby Wye

A new program, geared towards keeping communities safe, is coming to Northumberland County.

Safe Communities is a program created by Parachute, whose logo is “preventing injuries, saving lives.” The program is spread across Canada, with 27 safe communities already in Ontario. The Bay of Quinte became a safe community in 1998.

The process of becoming a participant is simple.

“We’ve handed out an online survey, completely voluntary, to agencies across Northumberland County,” said Inspector Doug Borton, spokesperson for the program.

All agencies and businesses are encouraged to participate. The survey will allow the program to comprise a list of available safety resources. The surveys will be completed July 15^th, and come September, the committee will have a “Priority Setting Exercise”.

This will allow them to establish a focus on injury prevention and the encouragement of safety within the county.

The idea was sparked from the six police services boards across the county.

“We took this initiative to see what each other were doing, as part of a joint process and then this information, [about] Safe Communities, was presented to them and that’s where this really started from,” said Borton.

Safe Communities began in 1994, with the motto that accidents were predictable and preventable. It was started when a young man was killed on the third day of his part time job after a flammable chemical he was pouring exploded. This was all due to negligence on his superior’s part, who didn’t inform the youth of the dangers of the product.

Paul Kells, this victim’s father, then made it his goal to prevent needless deaths happening. Safe Communities was the answer, and there are 61 communities across Canada.

“I hope, [Safe Communities] will make a working relationship across Northumberland County. We’re working towards the safety and security of all the people in the county. One of our obvious partners is the OPP and we want to work with the other police services to ensure safety,” said Borton.