City looking to hear from public on crime

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — The City of Fort St. John is holding two engagement sessions in response to a council meeting in April where council heard from local businesses about their experiences with property crime.

The city will have booths set up on Canada Day, as well as the open house and trade show on July 6th, to gather input from the community. A survey will also launch in early July for residents and businesses to provide their thoughts on community safety.

Over the past year, community members, especially business owners, have expressed their concerns about not feeling safe in the community, given a slew of break-ins and other crimes.

Since 2018, calls for service for the Fort St. John RCMP have decreased from 9,877 to 8,507. However, Inspector Anthony Hanson told Energeticcity.ca in March that the detachment has seen a noticeable increase in crime after a two-and-a-half-year decrease, which he says was due to the pandemic.

“During COVID, anecdotally, we would average about 15 files per 12-hour shift. We’re doing 25 to 30 files now, but COVID was an outlier. We are still not as busy as this detachment was ten years ago,” Hanson said.

The detachment commander hypothesized that this increase might be due to energy projects in the area ramping back up after the pandemic.

One example of this trend was property crime. Police received 1,987 property crime-related calls in 2022. This number is up from the 1,852 property crime-related calls the detachment received in 2021 but still low compared to the 2,374 calls in 2019. 

While property crime was shown to be down statistically in Fort St. John, the issues surrounding property crime and repeat offenders are a problem perceived by many across the Peace region. 

Through the engagement sessions, the city hopes to develop solutions and initiatives to promote and improve community safety through collaboration with stakeholders, such as local, provincial, and federal governments, service providers, business owners, and residents.

“Council’s objective is to foster collaboration among participants and partners, aiming to address the concerns raised and ensure the implementation of adequate measures to enhance safety throughout the community,” said the city’s website.

Six business owners submitted letters to council, which were read to council by local business owners Rui Miranda, Tyler Soule, and Buck Bruvold at a city council meeting on April 24th. 

The letters detailed business owners’ experiences with frequent property crimes being perpetrated against their businesses, what steps owners had taken to try and prevent the crimes, and the effects these crimes have had on their businesses and the community. 

The business owners asked city council what could be done about the crimes being committed and asked for help in moving forward. 

Council commended the business owners for their efforts and presentation and said the issue would require further communication and cooperation with the community and the RCMP. 

For those looking to keep up to date on the progress of the Let’s Talk community engagement sessions, click here.

With files from Katherine Caddel