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Calkins: Launch of rural crime task force

Red Deer-Lacombe MP Blaine Calkins speaks to rural crime issues
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MP Blaine Calkins

Over the past several months I have received an alarming amount of calls, visits, and emails from people in our rural communities telling me they are afraid to leave their property so they don’t get broken into.

I have received calls from people who are victims of crime, and emails from people who are frustrated with the dramatic rise in rural crime in our communities.

The intensity and frequency of the rural crime we are seeing and hearing about in our rural communities is alarming. In some parts of Alberta rural crime is up 200 per cent. My Alberta Conservative Caucus colleagues have come together to form a Rural Crime Task Force.

Our task force will be travelling across the province over the next several weeks to hear from victims, local law enforcement, municipal politicians, and crime watch groups and victims crime services. We want to hear the experiences and we are looking for solutions to this growing epidemic that we can include in a report to Parliament.

Rural crime affects everyone, not just those in the rural communities that are seeing the rise in crime. It affects our justice system, our policing resources, and it causes increases in our insurance premiums. Most importantly it has a direct impact on the culture of our communities and our people.

Our rural communities have been abandoned by the provincial NDP government and the current Trudeau Liberals only care about their Liberal friends. My colleagues and I know there is a problem and people are frustrated.

I would like to invite you to come out to one of the three meetings I am hosting in our riding so I can hear your concerns and your solutions.

Meeting information:

• Monday, Jan. 8th, 6:30 p.m., Alix Community Hall

• Tuesday, Jan. 9th, 6:30 p.m., Lincoln Hall, Lacombe County

• Wednesday, Jan. 10th, 6:30 p.m., Liberty Hall

Please contact my Constituency office if you have any questions or concerns on any federally related matters, postage free, at: 201-5025 Parkwood Road, Blackfalds, AB T0M 0J0; tel: 587-621-0020; toll free: 1-800-665-0865 or visit my web site: www.blainecalkinsmp.ca or on twitter at www.twitter.com/blainecalkinsmp