Chris Clegg
Does anyone remember why the Town of High Prairie hired its first peace officer in 2001?
Before I remind citizens of the answer, I will point out a similar response was heard over and over at the public forum on crime held June 24. As Town of High Prairie CAO David Joy summarized accurately at the end of the forum, the public wants increased patrols in town.
On Aug. 15, 2001, Brad Foote was hired as High Prairie’s first special constable. At the time, his job focused on three main areas. Half the time was to be split dealing with bylaw enforcement and dog control. The other half – do you remember this? – was increased patrols at night.
In 2001, High Prairie had a horrible graffiti problem. Foote’s job was to keep a watch on the rotten little you-know-whats running around town at night painting public property. While some graffiti was actually fairly attractive it did not make the merchant smile as he attempted to scrub the “artwork” off his building or spend money repainting.
A look around town today and you can still see some of the vandalism (spray-painting) done well over a decade ago. Is our community pride so low no one cares to clean this up?
I am reminded of the wise words years ago from Northern Sunrise County Councillor Dan Boisvert. He maintained crime decreases if you make efforts to make it difficult for the perpetrators to do their dastardly deeds. No one likes to be caught red-handed spray-painting a building by the boys in blue appearing like ghosts in a fog. Increased patrols, Citizens on Patrol, or in Boisvert’s case, Rural Crime Watch, all work.
Crime increases in a community only if you let it. The idea of hiring extra staff is not a bad idea. In 2001, the tax paying public was fed up with the petty vandalism and decided they would support council’s hiring.
June 23, the public wanted increased patrols but in a cost-effective manner. Given what happened in 2001 fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!
What is head-scratching is we have never had more law enforcement people than we do today. Police officers, peace officers, sheriffs, Fish & Wildlife, and more all watching over our shoulders making sure we behave. Yet, High Prairie has a crime rate nearly four times the national average!
Just suppose each of these law enforcement agencies cracked down on the vandals running free in our streets. Put them all before the courts. Make the provincial government hire more Crown prosecutors to handle the workload and clean this mess up. Perhaps even give the home address of each judge who releases all these suspects. They are such nice people they need to be set free, right!
At the public forum on crime it was said repeatedly the RCMP do not cover the town from 4-8 a.m. Why? Shifts should be staggered so at least there is some fear of being caught bright and early some morning by a would-be spray-painting artist taking advantage of early 5 a.m. sunshine to paint his first Michaelangelo. Not patrols seven days a week but perhaps one or two days?
The point of this is simple. Council decided in 2001 to deal with crime by extra patrols at night. They were willing to pay the price. Somehow, in 2025, this strategy was deemed useless. No one can be surprised the public did not want to hire more peace officers.
Increasing patrols at night is the best solution. We all have part to play, however. See a crime. Report it.
However, it numbs the mind our crime rate in almost four times the national average. If that isn’t a reason to hire more police officers, what is? Just how bad does it have to be to trigger increased enforcement?