SIMMERING RURAL CRIME DEBATE

  The delegation of ranchers and farmers in Alberta who travelled to the legislature to demand action on rural crime, described feeling besieged as break-ins, thefts and robberies become more brazen. The United Conservative Party pushed for an emergency debate, saying that in some communities crime rates have jumped more than 250 per cent since 2011.
  The emergency debate didn’t happen, and the delegation went home.
  Now, in the aftermath of Gerald Stanley’s acquittal in the killing of 22-year-old Indigenous man Colten Boushie, rural crime is once again a charged topic, one intertwined with heated debates over race, reconciliation and criminal justice in Canada. Why rural crime is rising in some areas, how to get a handle on it, and the roles played by economics, changing demographics and stereotype are among the questions to emerge since the jury’s verdict.