Police calls for service increase for St. Marys in January

By Galen Simmons

Officers with the Stratford Police Service (SPS) recorded a busy January in St. Marys as the number of calls for service increased by more than 10 per cent over the number of calls police responded to in St. Marys in December.

At the Feb. 18 St. Marys community policing advisory committee meeting, SPS Chief Greg Skinner presented policing and crime statistics from last month. While the number of calls for service rose from 166 in December to 183 in January, the statistics show an even steeper, nearly 34 per-cent increase when compared to the number of calls for service a year ago in January 2025, which was recorded at 137.

Police laid a total of 51 charges in St. Marys last month, up from 37 in December and just 27 in January 2025. Nine of the calls police responded to in St. Marys last month were related to mental health, up from just two in December and six in January 2025.

“The situation we had out in (Tumbler Ridge) British Columbia showed that the police really are not equipped to deal with mental-health issues,” committee member Tony Winter said.

“I don’t know much about the shooting out in B.C., but your comments are absolutely accurate,” Skinner said. “We don’t have all the education, background and experience that others have in the community, and we have to really focus on referrals in those situations so that we do engage those other organizations with that expertise, whether that is MCRT (mobile crisis response team), social services, or the health-care system. We really have to engage those processes.”

Skinner commended the Town of St. Marys for continuing to fund and support its community outreach worker as she continues to support vulnerable residents.

Police also responded to two domestic-related calls in St. Marys last month, down from four in December, and the same number of calls police responded to in January 2025. From those two calls last month, police laid one charge related to domestic violence in St. Marys.

“Last week, council received a delegation from representatives from Optimism Place who just provided some education to council on intimate partner violence with a request to declare an epidemic,” said town CAO Brent Kittmer. “Council has and, really, the call to action for us is just to provide education. We supported the Optimism Place’s Not Now campaign this year and we will continue to do that in the future, and then they provided us links for training we should provide internally to our staff. So, we’ll start rolling that out to our staff over the next few months.”

Police did not receive any calls in St. Marys related to violent crime last month, a trend carried forward from December. As for property crime, police responded to one auto theft, four frauds and three thefts under $5,000 in St. Marys in January. Police also did not receive any calls related to drugs or alcohol last month, down from one drug offence and one impaired-by-alcohol offence in December.

Stratford police responded to a total of 13 motor vehicle collisions in St. Marys in January, up from eight in December, including one resulting in personal injury, 10 resulting in property damage only and two being classified as hit and runs. Police also issued 21 traffic tickets to drivers on St. Marys roads – nine for speeding, eight for driving without a valid permit, three for careless driving and one to a driver who failed to surrender a licence.

Also at the Feb. 18 advisory committee meeting, the first meeting of the year, committee members appointed Coun. Marg Luna as chair and member Robert Zensner as vice chair. While this meeting was the committee’s first of the year, Kittmer told members their next meeting on May 20 will be their last given the committee’s quarterly meeting schedule and the municipal election in October.

At the May 20 meeting, Kittmer said the town clerk will attend to solicit feedback from members on the committee’s mandate and governance model to help the town and its new mayor and council determine whether the advisory committee is achieving its purpose – part of an overall town review of all advisory committees.