Public Safety committee  We became a focal point for people in rural communities across both Alberta and Canada as many people identified with our situation and felt that they would have done the same thing in the same situation. At one local town hall meeting on rural crime, over 300 people gave us an u

Public Safety committee  I don't think we have very many comments on the policing numbers. What we are trying to get across to you is what people are communicating to us in the different types of stories, and what the reality is for landowners.

Public Safety committee  Yes. They've recently, I think in March or April, dedicated more funding to police in Alberta.

Public Safety committee  Yes. We actually have the Alberta sheriffs. We've heard some people recommend that they get more power. Right now, they're not allowed to help the police. They have certain jurisdictional issues, I believe, so they could improve the jurisdiction of the sheriffs to allow them to

Public Safety committee  The reality is that the police still can't get there in the 15 seconds when people are breaking into your home, like in this example. It sounds like they may be closer in a town in Manitoba. When you're half an hour out of town, the police are still not going to get there, regar

Public Safety committee  This actually affects urban people, so I'm glad you brought this up. A weapon can be anything. It doesn't have to be a gun. It could be a baseball bat. It could be a frying pan that you hit somebody over the head with. It has happened in urban areas, but probably isn't reported

Public Safety committee  When we went to the rural crime meetings, a lot of people were asking, “What can we do?”The police didn't have an answer. In our experience—with our very expensive legal defence lawyer—the police are not giving people the appropriate answers as to what they can and can't do. Pe

Public Safety committee  Yes, 10 feet from our door.

Public Safety committee  Here's the thing. You don't know what they're there for in the middle of the night. They were 10 feet from our door. Who knows if there were five other people surrounding our house?

Public Safety committee  I think one of the things that needs to be done is a review of RCMP policies and procedures, and how they handle situations like this. Landowners and people protecting themselves in similar situations should be presumed innocent, not guilty first. In this case, they jumped the gu

Public Safety committee  In terms of how the whole ordeal has impacted us, obviously it was incredibly stressful, the whole four months of the court process. Eddie had nightmares after this incident and now we have to lock our doors all the time.. We always have a fear of people coming back. Every time

Public Safety committee  In terms of the impact on our kids, we now have a five-year old, who was four at the time, and our youngest daughter is just over 18 months, so she was about a year when this happened. They could feel the stress we were feeling. They had to spend a lot of time with their grandpar

Public Safety committee  Yes. We're not so sure about the one woman who was charged, but the male, his name is Ryan Watson. He was injured pretty seriously from the ricochet. Five weeks later, he was found in a stolen vehicle with break-in tools and charged again. At this point, I don't believe they've

Public Safety committee  No. We hear about crimes every day. I just don't know if people are reporting it as much. Actually, in the last six months in Turner Valley, which is a neighbouring area to ours, crimes have gone up instead of down, so I think people just aren't calling as much.

Public Safety committee  I don't think a review of priorities will make much difference when there isn't enough coverage in the first place. Part of the reason they were unable to come for two hours is that they had so few staff on duty. As these ladies were saying, until 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. there is only o