Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 10, 2007

HAY RIVER - A new group of citizens who want to fight crime in Hay River had its first meeting Dec. 5.

The committee is so new it doesn't yet have a name or an elected leader.

Michele Stephens makes a point during the first meeting of Hay River's new crime prevention committee. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Fifteen people - seven of them candidates in the Dec. 10 municipal byelection in Hay River - attended the inaugural meeting.

"We're starting as a citizens group," said organizer Beatrice Lepine, adding the members have a strong interest in seeing action taken against crime in the community.

"It's needless to say we have a crime problem in the Northwest Territories compared to the national average," she said.

The crime prevention effort was sparked by the October killing of RCMP Const. Christopher Worden.

Lepine, herself a candidate in the municipal byelection, said she believes the Town of Hay River can play a more active role in crime prevention, despite the belief by some people that municipal government does not have any power in that area.

"People kind of think it's only dogs, ditches and dumps," she said.

Lepine distributed a copy of "Primer on Municipal Crime Prevention" from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

People at the meeting were to review the document and discuss it at their next meeting, tentatively planned for late January.

Much of the discussion at the first meeting focused on the territorial government's proposed Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) legislation.

Michele Stephens, who has started a petition in support of SCAN, gave an impassioned defence of the legislation, which would create a way to remove people from houses for trafficking, bootlegging, prostitution and other illegal activities.

Stephens noted her petition currently has collected about 600 names.

She said people have to take action against crime in the community.

"It's got to stop," she said.