True Patriot Love - Is Rural Canada’s Crime Crisis Being Ignored？ [Weekly Crime Update]

00:00:00.000 if we're going to see crime rates go up in the rural communities what are the root causes what

00:00:04.400 are the stats what it why exactly is happening is it is it you know domestic abuse is it drugs is

00:00:11.440 it what what is it and what's happening is it gun violence is it so those are the things that we

00:00:16.480 should be breaking down and those are the things that we should be trying to address quicker

00:00:20.720 once upon a time living in a small town in canada figure pretty much guaranteed you a virtually

00:00:30.880 crime-free lifestyle there was almost no crime in suburban areas especially in the outer suburbs

00:00:37.140 bedroom communities and small towns but recently stats canada had a shocking number this is

00:00:42.160 actually information from stats canada saying that rural residents face violent crime rates

00:00:47.880 nearly 50 percent higher than those in major cities upending the myth of that idyllic small

00:00:53.480 town that picturesque postcard canadian lifestyle we'll talk more about the change in the way crime

00:00:59.960 is affecting everyone in canada as always told to be joined by paul macucci paul how are you good

00:01:04.360 jim how are you doing yeah you know what it's an interesting stat i read it too and and uh

00:01:09.800 if you look at small towns and you look at the resources they have for law enforcement

00:01:14.440 you start to understand and as our law enforcement just like you consider all of our trades right now

00:01:19.800 you know whether we talk about plumbers electricians you know you have to look at law

00:01:24.200 enforcement and as law enforcement gets older you know that skill is eroding too so as our

00:01:29.880 as our canadian society um is starting to age and this is all of us unfortunately that's life

00:01:36.040 you know we're having uh rcmp's uh members retiring we're having local police officers

00:01:42.440 retiring while having people deciding that it's time to quit and with everything going on right

00:01:47.640 now whether it be overrun jails overrun um crime spree in different areas listen they probably are

00:01:55.000 thinking this is the right time to go and and you and i talked about it before the show there was a

00:02:00.520 time i guess even in law enforcement that when you went to work you weren't as you were always

00:02:05.960 concerned about your safety but there was an unwritten rule that parts of the communities

00:02:11.240 different communities didn't see a lot of crime that's right right and now you know the people

00:02:17.240 that are farming the people that are moving to the farms the people we're seeing getting involved in

00:02:22.600 rural communities are way different than they were but it was unheard of and and to the point now

00:02:28.280 there's also the whole vibe that um you know reducing the police cut the police we don't need

00:02:34.680 police so for a lot of young people looking at a career as a first responder they're looking at

00:02:39.240 paramedic they're looking at firefighter they're looking at different thing because to be a

00:02:43.800 firefighter to be a paramedic is still well respected right by people of all stripes in

00:02:48.600 the community whereas being a police officer it's not easy and it's not just the physical

00:02:53.160 threat and strain but the mental strain that they go through a lot of them i see why they get out

00:02:59.000 and go to private security or different ways of life because you can only take so much well and

00:03:03.320 and the danger right i think i think for the most part um in rural communities being a police

00:03:09.720 officer or police enforcement quite frankly has a lot of other issues right so yes a lot of times

00:03:15.560 when you arrive on that farm that uh perpetrator that criminal whatever they have a high-powered

00:03:21.560 weapon they're familiar with you know guns quite frankly they they have scopes they're you know

00:03:27.400 they're they know how to shoot a weapon with a lot of open space between the the you know the

00:03:32.360 alleged and the police officer exactly you're approaching you're approaching from a mile or

00:03:37.560 two off so they can see you coming and then you have to get out of your car you have to approach

00:03:41.240 the house and that that's where we hear these horror stories of these people so you know as

00:03:45.880 they get older and they decide they want to retire now you have this void and that void quite frankly

00:03:51.160 on top of that you know criminals that are moving uh contraband guns everything in the rural areas

00:03:59.000 are more sophisticated so they're more sophisticated as far as you know tracking

00:04:04.240 weaponry so here we are you know is it any surprise that we're seeing an increase in crime

00:04:09.940 in rural communities i don't think so once upon a time if a lot of us who maybe were the the child

00:04:17.420 an immigrant you lived in a maybe a small apartment in the inner city of a big city in canada

00:04:23.100 um your family need a little money you move to maybe a house and eventually you move to

00:04:28.700 one of those idyllic suburban communities like a vaughn ontario yes like a surrey bc out of

00:04:34.860 downtown vancouver all across the country and that was thought of safe schools safe neighborhoods

00:04:40.940 maybe a few speeding tickets maybe a drunk driving but no major crime to worry about

00:04:45.580 and that has changed in such a huge way in the last 10 years that we're seeing these what we

00:04:50.940 thought was the ultimate safe community to raise their family there's all these gun violence crimes

00:04:56.460 being taking place on a regular basis paul well you know it's interesting i went i just got back

00:05:01.340 and i i mentioned a little bit before the show to you i actually just got back from a wedding in

00:05:05.580 windsor you know i was involved in the farming community years ago down in that area and uh

00:05:10.940 nice part of the province nice part of the country it was you know right over the ambassador bridge

00:05:15.180 you know and and i enjoyed it quite frankly had a very uh interesting experience learned a lot

00:05:21.100 about something i didn't know and that was farming at the time and you know it was nothing to go to

00:05:26.060 sleep at night and not lock your doors he's still in the truck well i was shocked so after you know

00:05:32.700 when uh got up in the morning made my way up boulette street to go to the the wedding and i

00:05:38.380 was just shocked that the community has changed that much the boarded up buildings the homeless

00:05:43.500 people on the street the the basically apartments were just dilapidated and i was like wow this is

00:05:49.660 crazy how this this community has changed and you know i was there in a time when a million

00:05:55.900 americans used to come over because of the drinking age it has a party city and the exchange

00:06:01.180 and the exchange and it was very vibrant now it was kind of an eroded rundown city which quite

00:06:07.180 frankly you know has lots of these rural issues going on and i was like oh this is yeah it was

00:06:14.060 funny because you know it was there and i was with an old friend and i was enjoying and you know i was

00:06:21.260 happy for him and his daughter and everything else but when i was leaving i was thinking to myself

00:06:25.420 is this the right place for him to retire now like is this a really a nice place you know and

00:06:31.020 i'm not i'm not picking on windsor but i'm i'm just saying this is kind of one of those uh case

00:06:36.940 studies that we're seeing across the nation where to your point you know as people slow down they

00:06:41.580 would go to their retirement community in a smaller town well if smaller towns are going

00:06:46.140 to see higher crime rates you know where do where do we you know our elderly go to kind of slow down

00:06:52.460 retire have a nice segue you know into uh the latter years of their life i think about mike

00:06:59.260 and brady on their cross canada trip and some of the communities they're going through through

00:07:03.260 northern ontario across the prairies and for a lot of years a lot of those communities were

00:07:08.300 like it's a good place raise a family have a career have a job the big big crime the big issues

00:07:13.980 are in vancouver montreal toronto the big city but not there but now you have fentanyl and crime

00:07:21.020 and gangs and violence that has spread to parts of the country that didn't exist before and you

00:07:26.460 have a great it's a great point paul where do you go in this country now that you think truly is safe

00:07:31.740 so i'm running a triathlon this is a crazy story i'm running a triathlon uh years ago this is a

00:07:37.260 few years ago and i'm training so i'm doing my bike training in the morning yeah of course at

00:07:42.460 four in the morning you know way out about uh 40 minutes outside of toronto because the rolling

00:07:47.900 hills you know towards highway six and all that and i go and i do like 50 to 100 kilometers in

00:07:53.900 morning yeah i was doing a lot of biking because getting ready and i'm biking along i got my head

00:07:59.100 down i'm on my last leg because i had to go to work after i'm in my last leg to finish off i'm

00:08:04.300 trying to paling hard i got my head down i'm going downhill and i'm flying down i'm feeling really

00:08:08.780 good i'm about to finish all of a sudden i look up and it's the drug enforcement guys in the middle

00:08:15.340 of the road pulling me off my bike into the ditch and so i'm like holy cow like you know and they're

00:08:21.820 they're like you know hands up and they're pulling me off and then i'm actually being brought down

00:08:26.460 the ditch they're about to do a raid on a farm adjacent to where i'm right right so i got my bike

00:08:34.300 i'm all sweaty i'm laying in the weeds right wow one of them because he's he's left behind to

00:08:39.660 protect me now because you know they yeah yeah they pulled a civilian out and they don't want

00:08:43.420 him to be harmed right and so he's like you know i can't talk i gotta so i had to i had to lay there

00:08:48.540 for like 40 minutes until they had actually made the race like something in the movies paul it was

00:08:53.020 it felt like it i was like wow you know this is my favorite riding spot but nowadays what was not

00:08:58.860 the norm is actually the norm because when you're driving along and you're looking at that farm and

00:09:03.500 what people are storing on that farm it's not crops anymore right and so quite frankly you

00:09:10.460 know there's a lot of uh as people are moving things across the nation now things that we

00:09:15.580 never thought about before and and so now that's what we're incurring but but you know unfortunately

00:09:20.940 that's that's starting to change the composition of these cities and also the crime rates so

00:09:26.300 you know as we always do jim you know now's the time that we need to start talking about

00:09:31.660 how to mitigate that so i have a serious conversation as a nation as a nation of if

00:09:37.420 we're going to see crime rates go up in the rural communities what are the root causes what are the

00:09:41.980 stats what it why exactly is happening is it is it you know domestic abuse is it drugs is it what 0.89

00:09:49.260 what is it and what's happening is it gun violence is it so those are the things that we should be

00:09:54.140 breaking down and those are the things that we should be trying to address quicker

True Patriot Love - June 03, 2026

Is Rural Canada’s Crime Crisis Being Ignored？ [Weekly Crime Update]

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