TORIES TACKLE RURAL CRIME
Plan aims to make Alberta safer
RCMP contract policing in Alberta should be reviewed to see if it is sufficient or should be replaced by an expanded regional policing model or a “fully empowered provincial police service,” a new task force report released by Alberta members of the federal Conservative Party says.
Furthermore, the report says, RCMP contract policing positions should be examined “to ensure they are not being used to fulfil other RCMP mandate positions.”
Those were just two of the numerous suggestions put to a task force of 11 Conservative MPs by constituents, community groups and law enforcement agencies last year during town hall meetings across the province focused on addressing crime in rural areas.
The town halls were a joint partnership between federal Conservative MPs and provincial United Conservative Party MLAs.
The report, titled Toward a Safer Alberta: Addressing Rural Crime, puts forward dozens of recommendations to address “an unprecedented increase in rural crime.”
Some of those include changes to the Criminal Code such as the revising of the criteria for “reasonable use of force” by property owners and to consider remote locations, timeliness of response and the failure of an offender to leave someone’s property after been confronted.
It’s a recommendation echoed in the UCP’s rural crime report released in July that urged a federal review of self-defence laws in the Criminal Code.
The report suggests amendments regarding the use of a “firearm to require consideration of any noncriminal motivations for the actions involved.”
Another suggestion is the reallocation of existing federal crime prevention and community safety funding programs to “enhance the use of electronic monitoring of repeat offenders who are confirmed as a main source of rural crime” as well as adjusting federal funding for local Legal Aid to increase full-time salaried duty counsel.
The report says amending the Criminal Code, Corrections and Conditional Release Act and Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to “expressly authorize the releasing authority to direct the use of electronic monitoring in all relevant applications” should be considered. A federal tax credit for private individuals who buy and install home security systems and crime-prevention measures was another suggestion.
And while the UCP said its report would form a “blueprint” for systematic changes if they are to win power at the next provincial election, Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner MP Glen Motz was less committal about which recommendations, if any, the Conservatives would implement if they win the election in 2019.
Motz, who dubbed the paper “the people’s report,” said “unequivocally” it was not a Conservative Party of Canada policy document but simply a report of the findings from Albertans.
“Canadians should be able to live in their homes, in their communities without the fear of someone breaking into their house or attacking them or stealing their property,” he said.
The NDP government and RCMP launched four rural crime units as part of an initiative to target repeat offenders while also trying at address the root cause of criminality.
And recent RCMP statistics point to a distinct improvement in rural Alberta crime. In the first seven months of 2018 compared with 2017 (the rural crime strategy began in February 2018), rural Alberta experienced an 11 per cent drop in property crime. The RCMP also reported 366 fewer home break-ins, 648 fewer stolen vehicles and 2,358 fewer thefts over that same period.
The report has been submitted to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security as part of a call by the Conservative party to study the issue of rural crime.
Kate Puddister, assistant professor in the department of political science at the University of Guelph, described the report as “really interesting,” especially reforms focused on preventive measure and change in Legal Aid funding.
The Criminal Code reforms and changes to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act however “would make the system more punitive,” she said.
“It’s premised on the notion of trying to deter people by adding things to the Criminal Code where research shows that really doesn’t work,” she said.