Mayor Stephen Mandel and Police Chief Mike Boyd are vowing to crack down on the growing number of knives on city streets.
The two met Monday to discuss the possibility of new bylaws or legislation.
"With the number of knives coming out and being used, people are not safe," said Boyd.
The possibilities discussed Monday include, to create a bylaw making carrying a knife in public illegal, to restrict the sale of certain kinds of knives and to ban carrying knives in licensed establishments.
"We'll get a report back from administration as far as we can in order to do what we can to limit or eliminate knives in the city of Edmonton," said Mandel.
But, Criminologist Dr. Bryan Hogeveen questions whether any of the possibilities would make a difference.
"The problem is that we're not dealing with the issue at hand the issue at hand isn't knives, its violence," Hogeveen said.
Dr. Hogeveen said restricting knives doesn't address the root causes of the crime that is now being studied by a task force, trying to target violent offenders early.
"How do we find them, the supports and the services, so they can make different decisions, that's how we'll measure success," said Lindsay Kelly with Task Force on Community Safety.
That is a long-term approach at this point, with an estimated 1600 knife related incidents in a year in Edmonton, some feel a short-term fix is needed.
"We have to step forward and stop this," said Mandel.
The issue of knives has been raised in other Canadian cities as well.
Calgary passed a bylaw last year imposing a small fine for carrying visible knives in public and a city-wide ban was proposed in Saskatoon in 2005 but never became a bylaw.
The issue on the growing number of knives on city streets stems from two deadly stabbings in our city in the past week.
With files from Scott Roberts
