ROTHENBURGER — ‘No one denies there’s an issue with prolific offenders’
RARELY IS THERE AGREEMENT between the BC Liberals and NDP, especially during Question Period in the Legislature, but they came close to it this week on the issue of random assaults and prolific offenders.
The Libs hammered at Attorney-General David Eby all week long, continuing what they’d started the week before, and at the end of it received this rather surprising acknowledgement: “I share the member’s concern,” he told MLA Shirley Bond, but qualified it with, “to a point.”
More on that in a minute.
Favourite word of the week was “horrific,” used frequently both by Eby and his Liberal antagonists to describe the thefts and many random street attacks in communities throughout the province.
One after another, Liberal MLAs piled up examples of the “horrific” attacks and egregious thefts from businesses.
Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Pierre, in all do respect sir, the homeless and in particular the drug addicted are disproportionately the leaders in petty thefts. Furthermore, if you or I were in their position I’m sure we would be no different. But jail is not the answer for most of the culprits, it’s neither rehabilitative nor cost effective. As a society we bitch, whine and react with little thought. Why can’t we have a thorough and frank community dialogue and make a plan of action from their? Obviously compromises will have to be made but don’t “ALL” of us deserve better?
I repeatedly see people walk out of Safeway and the $ store on the North shore with goods not paid for. The staff say their hands are tied and nothing they can do. Unfortunately, it is the homeless that are doing this. We know them, as we see them every day on our streets and in our neighborhoods. Catching and prosecuting them is fruitless and expensive for the stores and the perpetrators are let out with no consequences ,so of course they will do it over and over. This costs all of us money through higher costs that the stores have no choice but to pass on, if they are to stay in business. A downtown drug store has taken all its merchandise off its shelves because of shoplifting by the folks who wander in to warm up and take items. It seems to me that the court system has failed us by not providing the proper consequences to actions. Probably a lesson parents should have taught them at an early age! Taking a stand, eventually, is useless and saying it is not the street folks, is burying your head in the sand. Yes they definitely need help but how long do we have to wait for the results to happen and how much money are we going to throw at is with no positive results? By the time gov’t gets through all its discussions etc., it will be too late. It seems Canadians are much to nice and tolerant and the tax payer pays for it.
The next concept David Eby should grasp is the proliferation of victims.
Very astute comment John. So true!
A tougher stand will need to be taken eventually. But it is wrong to assume homeless people are committing various crimes.