About 30 residents turned out on March 13 for a "rural crime forum” hosted at McArthur Place in Lac La Biche, where local politicians, police officers and First Nations representatives listened to concerns about rural crime and voiced their opinions on certain ideas.
In an opening address, Fort McMurray-Cold Lake MP David Yurdiga said the "tremendous spike” in rural crimes had prompted rural Alberta MPs, including himself, to form a Rural Crime Task Force to address the issue.
Noting that he himself had items stolen from his property, Yurdiga said the increasing crime rates affect everyone no matter what they do.
"The criminal element’s out there. They will scope your property out, they will track you through Facebook and they are right now using social media and the Internet to find your property and see what you have.”
On occasion, some of these thefts have also turned into violence when a thief is caught during a break-and-enter, he said.
"People are scared. People are tired of having their property stolen. And they’re tired of (seeing) no results,” he said.
The Rural Crime Task Force was a way of presenting a unified voice as opposed to everyone doing their own thing, he said, noting the feedback from this meeting and other forums would be compiled into a report by the task force.
Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills MLA Dave Hanson commented that he was somewhat disappointed by the low turnout that evening, because he knew there are a lot of people in the area who are concerned about rural crime.
"We really have to get people a little bit more engaged,” he said, acknowledging there were issues with the mail-out advertising the meeting.
Hanson said that on Nov. 17, more than 120 people came into the Legislature to tell their stories of how they had been victimized on their property. In one such story, a family was held at gunpoint while two other robbers ransacked their house.
"We (the Official Opposition) asked for an emergency debate with the government, in front of those 120 or so folks that had driven from all over the province to hear an Emergency Debate.”
Hanson did commend the government to invest $10 million in hiring extra RCMP officers and administrative staff.
"The problem with that is, when you put in an application for a new RCMP, it can take up to a year and a half to get them,” he said.
Hanson said they will try to pressure the government into putting more RCMP out in the rural areas. However, he noted that local Crown prosecutors in area like St. Paul are severely overloaded with thousands of court cases.
"It’s very hard to attract a good young prosecutor out to an area like St. Paul where he’ll be bombarded with case loads that he can’t possibly deal with.”
Lac La Biche County mayor Omer Moghrabi highlighted how the county had been trying for the past four years to address crime rates.
"Whenever we’re going to the AAMDC and AUMA conferences, we ask every time to speak to the unit commanders and the Solicitor General,” he said, noting he would be meeting again with the Solicitor General this week.
He said they have also been working to add more Enhanced Policing positions to the Lac La Biche RCMP, which will finally be occurring at a cost of about $155,000 per officer.
Moghrabi has also directed two of their bylaw enforcement/community peace officers to upgrade to Level 1 status and arranged for new clerical staff to help them out.
Staff Sgt. Luis Gandolfi, the interim Lac La Biche detachment commander, noted the local detachment had undergone a lot of changes over the past four months and they’re just coming out of it now.
"(We’re) looking forward to getting your new full-time commander here in the next little while,” he said.
Currently Lac La Biche has 20 members, some of whom are posted to look after certain communities. Like most detachments, they have a huge area to contend with, he noted.
They also have access to K-9 units in nearby St. Paul and Cold Lake and other communities in the province, and can access helicopters, patrol vessels and quads when the situation calls for it.
"We are very well-equipped that way,” he said. "What we tend to run into is just the resourcing issue in terms of personnel.”
Gandolfi noted that, statistically, person crimes like assault and uttering threats have trended down from 2013 as people have less money for alcohol, drugs or partying.
However, property crimes have definitely spiked, with break-and-enters rising from 73 in 2013 to 189 in 2017, theft of motor vehicles increasing from 73 in 2013 to 167 in 2017 and theft under $5,000 rising from 150 to 252.
Chris Clark, supervisor of enforcement services at Lac La Biche County, said peace officers generally come into play when enforcing the county’s bylaws, such as when there’s an unsightly property.
However, community peace officers can conduct patrols, which can help deter crime. Clark noted 50.2 per cent of their calls occur within hamlet areas like Plamondon and Lac La Biche, while the other 49.8 per cent occur in rural areas. Clark noted that upgrading two of their members to Level 1 community peace officers is that they will be able to stop vehicles for traffic-related offences, or if there is any suspicious vehicle out in an area, they can actually run its licence plates.
"Lately we’ve had several stolen vehicles that we’ve identified, and usually that’s from our officers trying to stop them that’s related to a traffic offence. We’re able to report that to the RCMP,” he said.
Clark stressed that solving crime is a community-based problem. If you are not willing to report a suspicious vehicle or individual walking through your neighbourhood, or to report a break-in to your shed where someone stole something minor, then that affects the statistics that determine policing.
Resident feedback
After the initial addresses, residents spent about an hour sharing their thoughts on local crime. Many expressed favour with the idea of introducing "castling” laws — a legal doctrine where property-owners have the right to use any level of force to defend their property.
One resident, who did not give his name, invoked the case of Okotoks area farmer Eduoard Maurice, who is now facing charges after shooting and injuring a man who was attempting to steal his property.
"Are we going back to the Wild West here? I hear people saying, ‘Build a fence around your yard. Put gates up. Lock everything up.’ I’m not going to live like that,” the man said.
"You guys want to save a bunch of tax money? Give people the right to defend themselves.”
The man said he had been told not to confront thieves in his yard, but he noted he had called the RCMP this fall and it took them 40 minutes to respond.
"I’m not going to stand there and watch somebody go through my stuff and possibly come my house. I’m not going to watch them out the window and steal my vehicle.”
However, many of the government representatives spoke against the idea of making it legal for property-owners to use lethal force against thieves.
Gandolfi pointed out that castling laws are common in the U.S. and it hasn’t eliminated crime in any states where those laws are established.
"I’m from Alberta. I get your point of view. But our primary concern is the public,” said Gandolfi.
He noted that other officers have responded to incidents where people have attempted to pursue or confront thieves and ended up destroying their property or getting into a gunfight.
"You don’t want a bullet in your belly, or a bullet flying through your home and, God forbid, hitting one of your children,” he said. "I think that has to be considered as well.”
Gandolfi described the work of the Crime Reduction Units, which engage in sit-down meetings with teams of police officers, mental health professional, social services workers and others.
Angela Betts, a mental health professional said it is rational to want to protect your property and your family, but the individuals who are coming into your yard frequently are not rational.
"Putting yourself at risk and your family at risk of losing you, or the actual mental health challenges that you would possibly face after maybe taking a life, it’s also unrelenting,” she said.
Betts favoured the idea of Crime Reduction Units, as constantly heaping small punishments on to people with addiction or debts isn’t teaching them anything, and locking them up doesn’t help either.
"Putting them into a system full of criminals with mental health and addiction issues only exacerbates their problems”
Gary Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation said the idea of allowing vigilantism "scares me to death.”
As a First Nations man, he said that if his car breaks down somewhere, he’s staying put, because seeking help from a nearby yard could mean getting shot.
Lameman instead endorsed the idea of harsher penalties, expressing some shame at the fact that the Beaver Lake Cree Nation has been a haven for some criminals.
"Putting some meat on the bones (of our laws) sounds really good, for sure,” he said.
He said Beaver Lake is in the process of getting its own RCMP officer, though they will need to pass a residency law to extend more powers to the RCMP than they would normally have.
