New Brunswick municipality adds bylaw officers in response to thefts

Beausoleil Mayor Jean Hébert grew up about 100 feet from where he lives right now, and while he says it’s still a great place to live, things have changed.

”I remember growing up we were always saying ‘were in the country, we’re safe. It’s not like big cities,’ it’s not like that anymore,” he said.

“A lot of my neighbours and people around where we live, we’ve all got cameras now. We’ve all got sensor lights. A lot of them got dogs. We’re more careful.”

The municipality, which includes Notre-Dame, Shediac Bridge, Shediac Point, Cocagne and Grande-Digue, was formed last year and is constantly growing and evolving.

Starting Monday, two new bylaw officers are expected to hit the streets and their job description comes with more than just enforcing the newer municipality’s bylaws.

“The main thing right here, it would be so that people could feel safe at home. That they could feel that somebody is looking after them,” said Hébert.

The two new positions will be full-time shift work, which is designed so that they can pick up both night and day shifts across the municipality.

“We had a meeting in Notre-Dame de Kent, they had some problems with theft, so we had a meeting and we can’t take policing into our own hands,” said Hébert.

“We have the RCMP. They can’t be everywhere. They’re doing their best. Before they were around 50 members, now they’re 30 in Kent County, so a decrease in policing and an increase into crime.”

The bylaw officers also come with a $200,000 price tag and while Hébert says Kent County is expected to get six more RCMP officers, this was something that could be implemented quicker and specifically for the Beausoleil community.

“There’s a new reality and everybody has to be more careful,” he said.

“You don’t see [many] ATV’s and four wheelers parked at night around houses, you don’t see that anymore. Growing up, our bikes were always by the house and no problem with that.”

For example, just this past weekend, Rick’s Motor Mart dealt with two major thefts on two different days which resulted in a loss of six vehicles.

It’s a crime of opportunity that officials says is on the rise.

Criminology professor with St. Thomas University, Michael Boudreau says vehicles are an easy target and are in high demand.

“It’s easy in terms of stealing vehicles and then secondly, there’s a lot of money to be made by reselling them on the black market and then shipping them over seas where it’s very difficult for Canadian police to retrieve the vehicles,” he said.

Adding, “This is mainly driven by organized crime. They’re stealing the vehicles and shipping them, usually through the port of Montreal, out of the country.”

He says that there’s been an increase seen specifically in Ontario and Quebec, but with key fobs and wireless connectivity, it’s a quicker and quieter process.

“If you don’t have a garage, don’t share any access information that you can in terms of the entrance to your vehicles, don’t share that with anyone not even your family members. I know that sounds a bit extreme, but it is one way to control it,” he said.

Adding people should also put trackers into their vehicles.

“If nothing else, it may not prevent the theft of the vehicle, but if you can track it you can at least prove to both the police and perhaps more importantly to your insurance company that it has indeed been stolen and you didn’t have anything to do with it,” said Boudreau.

Hébert says residence in Notre-Dame de Kent have done their own surveillance in the past and while it didn’t eliminated thefts, it did help.

The new bylaw officers are not designed to take over any policing matters, but the hope is that they will provide more security and surveillance, which in turn will hopefully deter some of the thefts being seen.

“They’re not going to work (24/7) but it’s going to be shift work and there’s going to be night shifts, so they’ll see something and they can call the police right away, not waiting for the owner to phone in the morning after seeing what happened to his property,” he said.

Hébert says the plan is to see how big of a difference the bylaw officers make and revisit the topic after a year.

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