Saskatchewan’s rural municipalities have recognized rural crime as an ongoing problem in Saskatchewan.
“There’s a real issue with rural crime. It’s not actually just happening in Saskatchewan, but across the country,” Ray Orb, the president of Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
It has become the main focus for this year’s SARM convention: small-town crime, and what actions landowners are able to take when they or their property is at risk.
It’s not just rural Saskatchewan taking notice. Federal politicians are talking about it as well.
“What we need to make sure we have is complete through open communication with people in rural areas, with police forces, with indigenous people; we’re all in this together,” Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale said.
In pursuit of more open communication, some are turning to new methods of communicating. In the RM of Edenwood, a rural crime watch group has been reporting crimes and suspicious activity through a WhatsApp chat group.
“It’s a closed group and we have 90 members in our rural crime watch group and probably a little over half of them have the app,” said Tim Brodt, president of Rural Crime Watch 158.
Brodt says the app allows him to send RCMP press releases to rural residents who otherwise might not see them.
The RCMP has been promoting the idea to other RMs in Saskatchewan, trying to spread the word about rural crime watch groups and the WhatsApp feature.
“So information, once it’s posted, goes out to everyone on the program and we’re having the local detachments be part of the information app so information can flow back and forth,” Corporal Mel Zurevinsky of the RCMP Crime Prevention/ Crime Reduction Service said.
There is also a push to make a provincial version of the WhatsApp group, so no RM is left in the dark.
“I think you have more eyes with these cell phones out there and reporting activity and stuff. It’ll help the RCMP,” Brodt said.
With files from CTV’s Gina Martin.
