Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce brings out its weekly newsletter on March 6

ICCC Weekly Newsletter

06 MARCH

The business community has an important role in mitigating the challenges faced by international students

Nishan Duraiappah

Chief, Peel Regional Police

Some of my remarks today are going to speak to what you would normally understand as a police-related issue. When we think about the intersecting points between our police community and our newcomer community, particularly our international students, I do not have a police-specific response.

As a Sri Lankan immigrant myself, my parents were born in Sri Lanka, I understand that we need support systems to sustain us when we are starting our lives afresh in a new country. We depend upon our community to provide us with that support. If you come by yourself, and there are other systems that aren’t strengthened to support our international students, we have already disadvantaged a significant population.

I often say, 80% of what our officers spend their time on is on noncriminal activity. We are supporting vulnerable populations, whether they be older adults, youth, those that have housing, precarious housing, mental health, addictions, food insecurity.

I want to first commend the chamber for seeing how the business community can strengthen some of the solutions that is needed. So let me first say that the traditional policing model has been, you look to the police for policing responses, but what I’ve been asked to do in the last few years is here in Peel, is to change our approach to not use the traditional approach of how we responded to growing pressures, but to see it in a different lens.

In finding ways to strengthen the support and safety nets for our international students, I see not only the role of the police but also of the business community. The Peel Police calls it the…