Vancouver mayor, VPD to provide update on future of ‘Task Force Barrage’

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is expected to provide an update Monday afternoon on the future of a police task force aimed at the city’s downtown.

In February, Sim and outgoing Vancouver Police Department Chief Adam Palmer announced the launch of ‘Task Force Barrage’ — a $5-million initiative employing more officers to target violence, organized crime, and criminal activity.

A police update in May also revealed that the $5 million was only supposed to fund the task force for six months.

Having passed that deadline, Sim, Chief Steve Rai and Vancouver Fire Rescue Services Chief Karen Frye are scheduled to speak at 1 p.m.

The Gastown Business Improvement Association has expressed its desire to see the task force extended, saying customers feel safer and are more likely to visit the area.

Critics of the task force have called it “reactive,” ineffective to preventing crime, and capable of doing more harm than good to the vulnerable residents of the Downtown Eastside.

Throughout the year, updates from the VPD have boasted ‘Task Force Barrage’ disrupting what it calls a “violent criminal network,” and a decline in total crime from the previous year.

“Violent crime declined by 11.2% in Q1 2025 compared to Q1 2024, with the number of cases dropping from 1,342 to 1,192 – the lowest number of violent crimes on record in Vancouver going back to the implementation of PRIME in 2002,” said a police report in June.

But statistics show a downward trend may have begun long before the launch of the task force.

As of early November 2024, police in Vancouver shared that violent offences were down 6.6 per cent from the previous year; property crimes were down 10.7 per cent; and calls for service were down 0.4 per cent. Police say there were 12 “culpable” homicides in Vancouver in 2023; in 2024, there were only nine. Meanwhile, police response time in Vancouver increased by 0.8 per cent – five seconds slower than the same reporting period in 2023.

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