Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer, along with Finance Minister Travis and Grande Prairie MLA Tracy Allard, hosted a town hall Thursday morning for area residents to voice their questions, concerns and ideas about combating rural crime (Photo: Shaun Penner)

By Shaun Penner

Rural Crime

Locals voice frustration over spike in rural crime at Minister’s town hall

Sep 12, 2019 | 4:25 PM

Grande Prairie area residents were given their opportunity to have their voices heard on the issue of rural crime Thursday morning at the Hampton Inn, as Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer made a stop in the Swan City as part of his Rural Crime Town Hall Tour around the province.

The response from area residents? Overwhelming frustration.

“People feel as though the system is a catch and release system and it’s not protecting them and their homes and their communities,” said Schweitzer. “They feel vulnerable.”

The rural areas around Grande Prairie are far from immune to the provincial issue of rising property crime rates. The western part of the County of Grande Prairie has seen a 900% increase in cases of theft over $5000 in just the first quarter of 2019 alone. Break and enter crimes have also doubled, while offensive weapons cases have shot up 250%.

One of the biggest issues brought forward, as Schweitzer mentioned, was the number of repeat offenders being released from custody and re-offending, often in the same areas they were caught in before.

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That’s something Schweitzer put on the previous NDP government, saying their triage system of trying to unclog some of the backlog faced by crown prosecutors was letting too many repeat offenders slip through the cracks.

Though he wants to help alleviate some of the pressure faced by prosecutors, he wants

“What we’re talking about here is finding alternatives to deal with cases, not necessarily in the court system, but still hold accountability through different administrative models as well,” said Schweitzer. “So, for traffic tickets or other offences, we’re taking a look at other jurisdictions to find ways to be efficient here in Alberta with our court resources.”

The issue of the workload put onto crown prosecutors is well documented, which Premier Jason Kenney has said his government will be hiring 50 more prosecutors to help alleviate some of the logjam. The concern facing residents of more remote, smaller communities is whether any of those 50 will want to work in their community and stay.

No exact plan for those prosecutors was brought forward by Schweitzer during the town hall.

In the present though, people feel unsafe in their own homes right now and feel like they must take matters into their own hands to defend what is rightfully theirs. Schweitzer is adamant that he does not want to see anyone employ vigilante justice because the laws in Canada do not work in your favour to do so.

“That’s a failure of our justice system. That’s a failure of us as a government, to make sure that they do feel safe in their communities,” said Schweitzer. “Our free and civic society and democracy is founded on public safety. So, we must do our job to make sure that Albertan’s feel safe, so they don’t feel that that is their only option.”

“We are reminding Albertans, that discharging a firearm to protect your property is not a step that you can take under our criminal code.”

This is something that Minister of Finance and GP-Wapiti MLA Travis Toews takes personally. As a resident of the west County area, he is all too familiar with the issue of crime, as his family’s property and businesses have all been victimized by crime.

“I can absolutely appreciate the frustration and the economic loss,” said Toews. “Really, just the sense of violation that you feel when you’ve been a victim of this type of crime, particularly repeatedly.”

With that, I asked Toews about what emphasis we can expect to be put on rural crime when he and the UCP release their first budget in the fall. Though he wouldn’t get into specifics, he says it will be a priority going forward.

“We were clear in our platform that we recognized that rural crime was a problem,” said Toews. “We’re committed to doing what we can as a province. It’s going to take all of us as Albertans, working together to meaningfully have a positive impact on this problem.”

“We absolutely have to deal with it.”

Toews did re-iterate though that the “tight financial situation” the province finds itself in and would not specifically say whether funding to policing or other services related to combatting the issue would see cuts when the budget is introduced this fall.

“We have to learn to deliver well with less. That doesn’t undermine the fact that we know rural crime is an issue. We’re committed to dealing with it,” said Toews. “But overall, that’s what the backdrop of a budget that will be a budget of restraint.”