Public Safety committee  First of all, I want to thank you for allowing me to speak on this really important issue. The Alberta Provincial Rural Crime Watch Association would like to encourage you to complete this study on rural crime and its effects on rural life in Canada. My name is Trevor Tychkowsk

Public Safety committee  Yes, you bet. There are several different groups. As the Alberta Provincial Rural Crime Watch Association, or any rural crime association, we are the passive group. We tell people we don't want boots on the ground. We don't want people doing active patrol. We want that person k

Public Safety committee  I think the biggest one for us is that, yes, some days they are thin. There is no question that they get a lot more calls than they can ever respond to. Our participation with the RCMP is phenomenal. We have an amazing relationship with them. Do I think that they can improve that

Public Safety committee  We've been finding that in fact it's not locals. That used to be the case, but now we're finding more and more that the people they're catching aren't local. These are hardened criminals who will go across many communities and continue these crimes.

Public Safety committee  That could be, potentially. I really don't know the direct answer to that. My community itself is about one hour from Edmonton, Alberta. I guess there's a possibility. The ones way up north that are farther from bigger centres are getting hit by crime too. There's a crime issue

Public Safety committee  It's really encouraging the general public to call the RCMP. We're getting too many complaints by RCMP members that people will go up to them weeks or months later and say, “By the way, I saw a suspicious vehicle go by but I never thought anything of it.” It seems as though tha

Public Safety committee  You bet. We signed an MOU with the RCMP, and that's when they announced that they were going to create a special crime prevention initiative. We've started to see some good success with that. There is a special task force team that is starting to come into the rural communities a

Public Safety committee  That's correct. That's what we're finding. Our community was hit with 11 break and enters in 24 hours, and that was from one end of the county to the other. That was within a 50-mile radius. That was just within the last two weeks. It's still happening.

Public Safety committee  We always had a great working relationship with the RCMP, but we just signed an agreement that really lays out what we would do as the Alberta Provincial Rural Crime Watch Association and what the RCMP will do for us. It just solidified it, really, saying, “Yes, we will be the ey

Public Safety committee  There was nothing specific. If we want speakers, we try to encourage our local clubs to use them, because they are definitely subject matter experts in this. We do use them when possible, but in the memorandum of understanding there was nothing specific that said that they will

Public Safety committee  To say that the crime prevention group or the crime—I can't recall the exact name, but—

Public Safety committee  Yes, there we go. That organization is quite new at it, so when the whole province is getting it.... When I speak for the Provincial Rural Crime Watch Association, I'm looking at it as our whole community, our complete province. Is crime still going up throughout the province? Of

Public Safety committee  Absolutely, Shannon. You're absolutely right in saying that. In our community, we have four members. You hit it dead-on, in that when that special task force comes in, they do a great job, but unfortunately, there's only so many of them. We see it just like a band-aid, because

Public Safety committee  Yes, for sure. We definitely are seeing that. We know of a certain group, and when they were in jail, crime went down. We knew that. When they came out, we were expecting crime levels to increase. You're completely right, Shannon.

Public Safety committee  No. I think a big one is looking at the justice system, for sure, but also, do we have enough police officers out there? As the government, what are we doing for our people to help protect our people? What more can we do to help protect them? They're really starting to not feel s