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Q: Why? An old farming way of thinking? Trusting your neighbours? The way things always were?

A: It’s a combination. Because Saskatchewan is a small province, I think there’s a sense in the smaller communities of maybe a false sense of security, handed down over generations. But now in the past several years since there’s been an economic boom out here, we’ve seen an influx of people from all over the country and all over the world. Those trends are changing.

Q: People haven’t noticed how these changes might impact their safety?

A: Yeah. Ten years ago the populations were around 2,500 people in these bedroom communities, like Warman. There was a small town atmosphere and everyone knew each other. But now, that doesn’t exist anymore. The populations are over 8,000 in a short period of time. Certainly it’s taken on more of a city atmosphere. I think we’re in a learning curve right now. I know a common practice on farms is to leave keys in the ignition — if the truck needed to be moved you didn’t have to run around to try and find somebody to get the keys. But now we’ve seen see all kinds of instances where we’ll recover a stolen vehicle on Highway 16, which is the Trans-Canada highway through our area, and shortly thereafter, we’ll receive a report of another stolen vehicle. It doesn’t take them long to find a car with the keys in the ignition.

Q: In Briercrest, where residents recently stood up to a pack of burglars who’d been terrorizing their town, the moral of the story was ‘We’re preserving our way of life, we don’t want to have to lock our doors or live in fear because of the way things have changed.’ Is there a defensiveness?