Criminal reference checks should be free

There seems to be backwards thinking lately in several areas of the town. I read recently about the change from having criminal reference checks for volunteers going from being no cost to being $15. What exactly is going on with our community leaders?

First, the technology for processing the information has been paid for over the years by the taxpayers in one way or another. It seems absolutely absurd that the push of a button on a computer and a signature on a piece of paper should cost anything. Our community should be valued that we should have so many volunteers, to give of themselves freely, to help others. It is a choice made by those who have something that they want to give back to their community because they can. Why then does our police services board deem it reasonable to penalize those people by making them pay money for a criminal check.

We as a community should be offering sincere thanks and praise instead of burdening those individuals with cost. We have a Community Reinvestment Fund, maybe it's time to change or amend its mandate to include reinvesting in the people in our community as well as our buildings and business, by ensuring our volunteers do not have out of pocket expenses, frivolously deemed necessary by a board that is already paid from our taxes to offer police service, including paper pushing. I hardly believe that there has been additional staffing hired to perform the criminal reference checks for volunteers and if there has been, well kudos for Innisfil and its volunteers.

The Police Services Board should seriously reconsider their presentation to charge for volunteer criminal checks. Innisfil has always been very progressive in their thinking about community involvement and whether other townships or communities are issuing such a levy to their town's people should be just something to look at and then come to the progressive conclusion that, we want more for our community and value our volunteers. Without volunteers there would be little community left in Innisfil and I for one believe we should show just how important they are to us.
Pamela Colbourne,
Innisfil