Tim Mulvena was in disbelief when he saw the ruins of his cannabis store, which went up in flames after a car plowed through the front entrance of the Teulon business.
He said the crime was done intentionally in the early hours of Oct. 1, just five days after The Vault Cannabis opened the store in the Interlake town.
“You expect maybe a window to get broken. To purposely burn down your business, you never think that what you’re doing is going to cause someone to act out in that way,” said Mulvena, one of the company’s seven owners. “It sure seemed the motive was to eliminate the business.”
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The Vault Cannabis store in Teulon was destroyed when a car crashed into the business and a fire broke out early Oct. 1, five days after the shop opened.
He said an investigator told him the car, which had been stolen from the Rural Municipality of East St. Paul, was doused in gasoline and set alight, after it was driven into the building.
The Vault, which has stores in Arborg, Ashern and Ste. Rose du Lac, is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible.
“You wouldn’t want this person out there potentially doing it to other businesses,” said Mulvena.
The fire was mentioned in question period Monday, while the Opposition Tories ramped up their criticism this week of the NDP government’s record on crime during its year in office.
The Progressive Conservatives claim NDP measures to date haven’t been productive, and police funding for rural Manitoba is falling short.
The NDP defended its policies and vowed to work with municipalities on solutions, while pointing to a police funding “freeze” under the former Tory government.
PC MLA Grant Jackson said people regularly stop him on the street or in the grocery store to raise concerns about a recent incident or crime in general.
“The concerns, anecdotally, (are) people feel more and more unsafe in their homes,” said the MLA for Spruce Woods, which includes the northern part of Brandon, Glenboro, Rivers and Souris. “It’s almost every time I’m out … somebody is going to bring up property crime and (how) the justice system has no teeth.”
Justice Minister Matt Wiebe said the NDP is looking at predictable funding and more increases in the future after its first budget contained a 28 per cent rise in urban policing grants.
“The public safety strategy that we’re developing this fall will certainly speak to some of those concerns that we have heard in rural Manitoba,” he said.
Manitoba had the second-highest crime severity index (145.5) among all provinces in 2023, Statistics Canada data showed. Saskatchewan had the highest CSI (160.2), which measures the volume and seriousness of crimes.
Manitoba’s figure was down slightly from 2022 (146.7), but up from 2021 (128.6) and 2020 (125.9).
The most recent monthly statistics published by Manitoba RCMP showed an 18 per cent rise in property crime reports in December 2023 compared with the same month in 2022. Reports of crimes against people increased by four per cent. Calls for service were up by seven per cent.
Kam Blight, president of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities, said members often cite crime or public safety as one of their top concerns.
“The biggest issues we hear of is property crime: theft and trespassing,” said Blight. “It’s happening during all hours of the day. Criminals are becoming more brazen.
“We’re seeing people start to take matters into their own hands. That’s really concerning as well, because we’re concerned about the safety and well-being of everyone.”
Rural leaders have expressed frustration over repeat offenders, he added.
The association supports bail reform and an expansion of community safety officer programs in rural communities.
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The Vault Cannabis store in Teulon, prior to the fire.
Governments must ensure vacancies on municipal police departments or the RCMP are filled, said Blight.
Jackson has backed Riverdale Municipality’s calls for the province to cover the cost of additional officers for the Blue Hills RCMP detachment in western Manitoba.
Located northwest of Brandon, Riverdale had its own police service until its chief and other staff left for positions elsewhere earlier this year. The municipality wanted to recruit replacements, while the RCMP provided temporary coverage.
Riverdale said it was informed by Manitoba Justice in June that Rivers Police Service had been dissolved and the RCMP was taking over.
“The RCMP didn’t get any additional staff. It makes our service more of a drive-thru and reactionary, compared to what we had in the past,” said Riverdale Mayor Heather Lamb. “The visibility is way less. When you don’t have that visibility, crime can move in.”
She said Blue Hills has 14 officers, but it should get at least one or two more after taking on an additional municipality, which has a population of 2,100.
Riverdale is lobbying Wiebe for an urban policing grant to cover the police service’s final costs. The municipality’s acting police chief is staying on until all files are transferred to the RCMP.
Lamb said the annual grant was taken away when the police service was dissolved. She said Riverdale does not have to pay for RCMP services.
Lamb said Riverdale’s council had a positive meeting with Wiebe on Oct. 1, but he would not confirm whether the province will agree to the municipality’s requests.
“We’re going to work with them to ensure that police and law enforcement is adequate for all people in the Riverdale Municipality,” Wiebe told the legislature Monday.
The mayor hopes Riverdale will one day have its own police service again.
“We’ve always been blessed with a safe community. I attribute that to the police service that we had for 111 years,” said Lamb.
— with files from Carol Sanders
chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca
Chris Kitching
Reporter
Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.
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