Grainswest - Winter 2019

Winter 2019 grainswest.com 29 INE YEARS OUT OF 10, DOUG SELL WOULD HAVE been in the field on Thanksgiving. But with snow on the ground this past fall, he and his family spent the day at his sister-in-law’s home. The following day at noon, he drove to his shop about half a kilometre from his house. “That’s when I saw the damage,” said Sell, who is Alberta Pulse Growers’ zone two director and farms wheat, canola and pulses between Rockyford and Beiseker. Sometime over the preceding day-and-a-half, thieves had jimmied the main door and ransacked the building. Finding the keys in the shop truck, they vanished with the vehicle and equipment that included a slip tank, generator and welder. They had also broken the spigot off a gas tank while attempting to break its lock, spilling 500 gallons of gasoline onto the ground. “We were far enough from the big, bad city that crime didn’t come out this far,” he said. “With three [thefts] in the last six months within a stone’s throw, we are not such an isolated, insulated community.” Filing an insurance claim and paying a hefty deductible, he soon had the replacement equipment required to finish the harvest and fortunately had a second shop truck, but he described the experience as “a real royal pain.” Farmers, Sell included, have been reluctant to speak publicly about rural crime, not wishing to draw further attention as targets. Now, he and his neighbours have vowed to be more vigilant and want criminals to know it. “It changes our rural lifestyle, but you see a strange vehicle on the road that’s driving slowly, you stop and find out who it is,” explained Sell. “That’s the positive spin that I want to see on it. As long as we’re more vigilant and the bad guys know it, they’re simply going to stay away.” It’s a proactive attitude that appears to be sweeping the province. CRIME RATES AND THE ROOT CAUSE Statistics Canada has reported a five per-cent rise in Alberta’s Crime Severity Index for 2017. The agency also reports that the province’s rural crime rate was 42 per cent higher than in its urban centres that year. As well, with just 12 per cent of Canada’s rural population, Alberta experienced 21 per cent of the nation’s rural crime. Putting these numbers in perspective, Doug King, a professor of justice studies at Mount Royal University, explained that crime rates have generally dropped 35 per cent since the mid-1990s, meaning any given Canadian is 35 per cent less likely to become a victim of crime than were their parents at the same age. He also noted that while urban centres have more crimes and receive more attention as a result, the rate of crime in rural Canada has always been higher. Particularly in Alberta, the upswing in rural crime in recent years has been pronounced in areas adjacent to cities and is a spillover effect of increased illegal drug activity. “It’s methamphetamine and heroin,” said King. “People are getting horribly addicted and turning to crime to survive their addiction. That’s what’s bumping crime rates up.” He suggested dealing with this root cause will effectively reverse the trend. POLITICAL AND PUBLIC DEBATE The stats don’t put rural crime at a crisis level, and King suggested that while all crime tends to be underreported, this is not the case with serious crime and would not affect the overall assessment of crime levels in rural communities. But, within the farm community, crime has caused a very real existential crisis. Alberta’s opposition politicians have taken note. Last July, the United Conservative Party (UCP) released A Safer Alberta: United Conservative Strategy to Tackle the Rural Crime Crisis , a report prepared by former Alberta Crown prosecutor Scott Newark with input from the party. “Many of our opposition MLAs were raising these issues in the legislature and then it just blew up,” said Airdrie UCP MLA Angela Pitt. “When you door-knock in these rural areas, there’s this level of anxiety that you’ll get frommany constituents because they don’t know you or the car you drove up in. “And it has bubbled up into cases where people have felt their only option is to take action themselves. The case of Eddie Maurice in southern Alberta is an example of how frustrated and how scared people are in rural Alberta.” Maurice, an Okotoks- area farmer, was cleared of charges after a warning shot he fired to scare trespassers ricocheted and injured one of them. Pitt said the main concerns heard during town hall sessions included 911 calls receiving slow responses or none at all. “Many rural Albertans have had multiple break-ins and feel like they’re not being heard. They feel like nothing is happening to our criminals.” The UCP report is intended as a blueprint for action, should the party form government. Its recommendations include the creation of a victims’ ombudsman office and reducing sentencing delays. It also recommends lobbying the federal government for Canadian Criminal Code changes that would preclude the prosecution of victims of crime and add mitigating factors for consideration when rural property owners are prosecuted for use of force in self-defence. “I think it’s a very reasonable ask,” said Pitt, noting the Conservative Party of Canada partnered with the UCP in studying rural crime and calls for the same action in its own report. King suggested there’s no question criminals engaged in on-farm crime are likely to be armed. Urban police have found suspected perpetrators increasingly carry weapons, and it stands to reason that they may be armed when prowling rural properties. However, while he said the role of political discourse in the debates is very important, it’s unlikely the Criminal Code will be altered. “Frommy perspective, the current Criminal Code provisions are suitable and would fit,” he said. “The provisions for use of force are largely that you can use as much force in repelling someone as the force they are using towards you.” In cases N