By Nigel Maxwell

Rural crime watch group growing in numbers

Jan 20, 2018 | 7:00 AM

Ongoing issues with vandalism and property crime are not isolated to cities, and a public meeting Thursday night was a reflection of that.

Representatives from the Rural Municipalities of Duck Lake, MacDowall, Domremy, St. Louis, Birch Hills, and Meath Park travelled to Christopher Lake and shared their stories with representatives from the RM’s of Garden River, Prince Albert, Buckland, and Paddockwood.

Prince Albert group representative Elaine McMillan said the message being sent to all rural residents is to be aware of people in your neighbourhood, who belongs and who doesn’t and to take note of one’s belongings, including the serial numbers.

“The RCMP have said they’ve got a fairly big warehouse and a lot of it has no identification on it at all. So it goes up for auction and if you have lost something, you don’t have a chance of getting it back,” she said.

While McMillan is encouraged by the expressions of interest, she said it shows how serious the problem is.

Trades in Sask.

Skilled trades need not limited to building homes

3h ago

Weather issues

Old man winter returns for one more round

4h ago

Unlocking success in real estate with Glenn Zdrill

8h ago

“The province has to step up and address the root of the issue which is drugs and alcohol, especially drugs, as things can be turned into fast cash to support their habits.”

Friday morning, McMillan said she contacted Canada Post and was given an update as to what was being done to address the ongoing mailbox vandalism issues. A Canada Post representative informed McMillan that mail would be held at the post office free of charge and Canada Post would look at replacing the old green boxes which can be easily pried open. 

“Some of the mailboxes have been broken into five times already, so hard to keep up with that but they are addressing that,” McMillan said.

McMillan added how some people at the meeting also asked for improved lighting at the existing mailboxes.

“Some of the ladies were saying the boxes are quite isolated, there’s nobody around, no lights and in the winter, we’ve only got five hours of daylight,” she added.

RM of Duck Lake Reeve Marcel Perrin was not at the meeting personally but said he is following the group’s activity closely.

“There’s certainly some activity [in the RMs of Duck Lake and MacDowall] but it’s certainly not as serious or at the same magnitude that I’ve heard of in other RM’s,” he said.

Perrin said he simply wants to take a proactive approach and do whatever he can to help prevent the crime from spreading further. Those comments are also being echoed by the Reeve for the RM of Nipawin. Mark Knox has sent a letter to the Prince Albert group, expressing support.

“We’re pretty lucky we’ve had not much going on so far and we’d like to keep it that way,” he said.

The rural crime watch group plans to meet again next month.  McMillan said she would like to have a representative from each RM or neighbourhood at the meeting.

nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell