Whitehorse shop owners say they're fed up with property crime

Some Whitehorse shop owners say they're fed up with break-ins, property damage and theft, which they believe has been on the rise in the last few years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Wines by Design sells wine kits. Two people were caught on security camera breaking into the store in the early morning of Nov. 25, shattering the front door to gain entry, and stealing the cash box, some speakers and various other items. Owner Shelly Maximnuk says the thieves are lucky she wasn't waiting for them with a baseball bat.

"I would not blame anybody for harming somebody if they broke into their business or their home, because they're just protecting what's theirs," Maximnuk said.

Maximnuk believes people committing the crimes are lazy and don't want to work. She thinks Canada needs stiffer penalties to deter them.

"These guys aren't getting caught and they know that even if they get caught, they'll be out because they don't do any time."

Another business owner in the city, Donna Reimchen, has owned the North End Gallery, a glass-walled art gallery and shop right downtown, for 13 years. 

"In the last two to three years, the vandalism and break-in incidents are happening more frequently and they're more severe," she said.

Two years ago, someone broke one of the windows to enter and stole from the cash register. Reimchen couldn't get the glass shards out of the carpet, so it became an expensive claim, where the insurance paid to install laminate flooring.

Reimchen said this raised her insurance premium to the extent she no longer files. So on Nov. 22, when someone broke another window to enter the gallery, she paid out of pocket to replace the window.

"Unfortunately, now we're looking at getting security bars in the windows, which is not something aesthetically that we're happy about doing, but we can't afford these costs anymore," she said.

Reimchen is disheartened. She says the gallery supports about 150 Yukon artists.

"I like to think we're here trying to do good things," she said.

Both Reimchen and Maximnuk believes it's only a handful of people behind most of the recent incidents. 

"There is no consequence from the justice system," Reimchen said.

Property crime down in Canada

Yukon RCMP said earlier this year that property crimes were on the rise in Whitehorse, targeting both businesses and private property owners.

Numbers from Statistics Canada suggest there was an increase in the rate of total property crime violations in Yukon between 2022 and 2023, but that rates in the years before that were roughly comparable to those in the early 2000s and had been going down slightly since 2019.

National rates also show a decrease in total property crime violations across Canada over the last couple of decades. 

"The statistics bear out that crime is on the downswing from the 1990s, quite significantly so, though there is a perception that crime is up," says Tony Paisana, a criminal defence lawyer with Peck and Company in Vancouver.

Paisana says perceptions about crime rates can be shaped by the media, and politicians who make it an issue.

Paisana also says property crimes committed by repeat offenders don't necessarily indicate that the justice system isn't working. He says every Canadian has a right to bail that's protected by the Charter, and it can take time for someone's criminal record to catch up to their activities and they're denied bail.

"Where you see a small group of people who will continually commit crimes at that level … you can see them being sort of pumped in and out of the system until there is a track record of actual criminal conviction," Paisana said.

Generally, he says, when there is a spike in crime in an area, it's due to socioeconomic factors.

"To the extent that you see uptick in property crime is usually always associated with upticks in addiction, poverty and other issues that are far more socioeconomic in nature than just the question of criminal law," he said. 

'We are there and we are doing investigations': RCMP

Sgt. Calista Macleod with the Whitehorse RCMP says it's true that there are some repeat offenders in Whitehorse, but that's not the case with every offence. 

"[We're] trying to let the public know that we are there and we are doing investigations and holding people accountable," Macleod says.

In September, the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce spoke to city council about concerns with property crime and council agreed to work with the Yukon department of Justice to address the issue.

Joel Gaetz, chair of the chamber's safety committee, says the chamber is working with the department of Justice as a consequence, and they are preparing to announce support for business owners. 

"This includes offering safety training, business assessments, and practical resources to help enhance security," Gaetz says.

CBC News contacted the department of Justice but nobody was available for an interview. A written statement from the department said it is "taking new actions that will be implemented in 2024-2025 to address community safety concerns."

The statement says this will include funding for two more RCMP officers, developing a new funding program to support crime prevention initiatives for businesses, NGOs and organizations that have been affected by crime, and facilitating restorative justice circles at the Whitehorse Emergency Shelter.

The department says it's also exploring a "repeat offender management approach" to address the needs of repeat offenders.

Kristina Craig, executive director of the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition, says more data is needed to properly understand the issue and address it, including who is committing property crimes, how many are repeat offenders, and how economic factors come into play.

She said there are many people in Whitehorse who live in poverty and insecure housing and who did not recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We need to support people who are living in poverty. We need to support people who are dealing with substance use," she said.

As for Reimchen, she says she understands that there may be complicated reasons behind why people commit property crimes against businesses like hers. But she says that as a business, she hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic, either. 

"Things are as tenuous as ever right now," she said.