Police 'hitting walls' looking for money for new forensics building

Hamilton Police are still trying to get money from the feds and province to build a new downtown investigative services building. But so far, the chair says, the service is "hitting walls."

The service needs $6.9 million each from the provincial and federal governments, said Lloyd Ferguson, Ancaster councillor and chair of the police services board. If that happens, the city and service will pitch in $5 million.

The service needed the building "eight years ago," Ferguson said. But so far, they've only been redirected.

"The land's been cleaned up," he said. "The full construction drawings are finished. We just can't get the funding."

If (the request) is not successful, we will be approaching city council to fund, as required in law, the buildings and services for our Hamilton police.- Chief Glenn De Caire

The new investigative services building would be 53,500 square feet and include three forensics labs one for evidence from victims, one for the accused and one for the crime scene.

In January, Chief Glenn De Caire warned city councillors that evidence is at risk of being contaminated if the service doesn't get a new building.

• City OKs $5M for new downtown Hamilton police building
• Police risk contaminating evidence without more forensics space: chief

Police are putting the bulk of their budget surpluses including a $1.8-million surplus last year toward the new building, Ferguson said. There's an unknown surplus for 2015 too. The city will pitch in $900,000 as long as the province and feds contribute too.

But Ferguson still doesn't know if they will. He and other police and city officials met with the province two months ago, only to be directed to another ministry, he said. So Ferguson is working on that.

As for the feds, Ferguson says, he's calling Hamilton's new Liberal MPs, Filomena Tassi and Bob Bratina, for help.

But so far, in the 11 months since the city OK'd the money, the rest of the money hasn't come.

De Caire said on Friday that if upper levels of government don't pitch in, he wants the city to make up the shortfall.

"If (the request) is not successful, we will be approaching city council to fund, as required in law, the buildings and services for our Hamilton police," he said.

The comments came after the board approved the 2016 operating budget, which is a 2.79 per cent increase over 2015. That's the lowest in 17 years.

The increase includes the full-time equivalent of 7.5 new employees. That means three sworn officers for the community mobilization branch, one detective for the crimes against seniors unit, one civilian employee for the victim services branch and 2.5 civilian positions for the member wellness unit.

samantha.craggs@cbc.ca | @SamCraggsCBC