The Victims of Crime Fund has been supporting a range of community & police based services across the province for more than two decades and is fully financed by a 30% surcharge on fines issued by police or imposed by the court – not by provincial taxes.
But the fund has also been available to individual victims of violent crimes to help deal with physical and psychological injuries as well as reimbursement for funerals and supplemental benefits to those who have suffered brain injuries.
But according 2Thursday’s budget, those financial benefits which amounted 2 more than $16 million dollars in 2015 according to the last publicly available Alberta Justice report the fund will be replaced with a service based program with the provincial boards overseeing the fund.
Alberta Justice has not responded to requests for comment as 2 what the replacement programing will be Johnson said SARC along with city police & its victims assistance staff run the Victims Navigation Program....
....also funded in part by the provincial Victims of Crime Fund which helps those eligible access the financial benefit program She added that while additional support for service-based programming for victims is welcome,
she reiterated the positive effect financial benefit program had on the recovery of those impact by violent crime.
“Sometimes it really offsets the costs and changes their lives,” said Johnson of the financial benefit program’s effect on victims.
It is not clear if any new support dollars were provided by the fund in 2019 with a number of agencies stating applications were not being accepted by the provincial government.
Earlier this month, members of the Medicine Hat Senior Citizens Advisory Committee reported the provincial government had placed a moratorium on the multi-million dollar fund last year.
Provincial justice officials would not provide comment on the moratorium.
A 2016 Alberta auditor general report on the fund reported that, “the fund is growing at a rate faster than payments to victims are being made,” and recommended better management of it.
What action has been taken by Alberta Justice since that report was issued more than four years ago is unclear.
@jkenney @RachelNotley @JanisIrwin @SPhillipsAB @MarieFrRenaud @Alberta_UCP @albertaNDP @AlbertaLiberals #ProtectVictims #UcpCorruption #abpoli #ableg #abgov #abhealth
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