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Fighting Crime Together: Alberta's Anonymous Tip Line

• Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation • Episode 22

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Crime doesn't solve itself. Someone has to speak up. But what happens when fear, time constraints, or personal connections make direct reporting to police impossible? Enter Crime Stoppers – the anonymous bridge between what people know and what police need to solve cases.

Crime Stoppers Alberta recovered over $22 million worth of stolen property, drugs, and weapons last year through their anonymous tip system that protects informants while helping solve crimes across the province. Mark Holik, board chair of the Alberta chapter, explains how this 40-year organization works behind the scenes to make communities safer while expanding educational initiatives.

  • Crime Stoppers operates through four Alberta chapters covering Edmonton/Northern Alberta, Calgary area, Red Deer, and Lethbridge
  • Anonymous reporting allows citizens to share information without fear of repercussions or court appearances
  • Last year saw 13,800 tips resulting in 810 solved cases across Alberta
  • Tips recovered nearly 100 weapons and significant quantities of drugs, potentially saving numerous lives
  • The Sign Program places Crime Stoppers information in communities, dramatically increasing tip submissions
  • New educational initiatives focus on human trafficking and sextortion awareness for youth
  • Crime Stoppers collaborates with ACT Alberta and Little Warriors on trafficking prevention
  • The organization relies on donations to fund its reward program for anonymous tipsters
  • Volunteer opportunities exist for those wanting to support crime prevention efforts

Want to become part of this powerful network? Have a look at their programs and learn how you can contribute to community safety while protecting your identity. Together, we can build communities where criminals have nowhere to hide.

About Our Guest

Mark Holik has been a dedicated advocate for community safety through his long-standing involvement with Crime Stoppers. He began his service with the Edmonton and Northern Alberta Crime Stoppers chapter in 2008 as a board member. In 2013, Mark was elected Vice President, and in 2014, he stepped into the role of President, serving two impactful terms until 2020.

In 2020, Mark’s leadership extended to the national level when he joined the Canadian Crime Stoppers Association, where he currently serves as Vice President. Recognizing the need for a more unified provincial presence, Mark also played a pivotal role in the formation of the Alberta Crime Stoppers Board in 2022 and now serves as its Chair.

Through every role, Mark Holik remains passionate about building safer, stronger communities where families can thrive, and citizens can play a direct role in crime prevention through anonymous reporting


What is Give Amplify Connect?

There’s a story behind every action. Give Amplify Connect is a podcast from the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation that gives a voice to the Alberta-based charitable organizations creating community impact, changing lives, and making a difference. Driven by honest conversations with host Kristy Wolfe, it’s a chance for passionate changemakers to share their story.

Learn more at wolfepackwarriors.com

Podcast music used with artist permission
"Okay" by Ellen Braun


Mark Holik:

The significant amount of tips that our community brings forth every single year makes a difference.

Intro:

Welcome to Give Amplify Connect, the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation podcast that dives deeper into the stories of the charitable organizations in Alberta that are making a difference. Host and producer Kristy Wolf sits down with the leaders of the non-profit world to learn more about their purpose, hopes and dreams. Settle in for an honest conversation with Kristy about the impact people are making in their communities and how they keep moving forward.

Kristy Wolfe:

With me today is Mark Holik. Now Mark is the board chair of the Alberta chapter of Crime Stoppers. He's also involved at a national level and he's going to share all of this with us. Mark, will you start by just telling us a bit more about you and how you got involved with Crime Stoppers?

Mark Holik:

Absolutely Well. First of all, thank you very much for having me here. That's quite an honour and I'm happy to share whatever I can with you and the listeners. So way back in my previous life, really before I took over the family business, I was involved somewhat in law enforcement in terms of being the corporate director of safety and security for Triple Five. So I looked after West Hampton Mall and Mall of America and a whole bunch of different properties in the United States. So my background kind of is in safety and community security and crime reduction. With that passion of mine and certainly you know my family certainly has always been committed to community safety and engagement and so forth, community safety and engagement and so forth. Once I left the security industry and wanted to continue on a path of being involved in the community and volunteering, I thought that Crime Stoppers would be a good fit for me with my background and that's kind of how I landed in Edmonton at the Edmonton chapter of Crime Stoppers.

Kristy Wolfe:

For anyone that doesn't know, will you tell us a bit about Crime Stoppers?

Mark Holik:

Yeah, you bet. I mean Crime Stoppers has been around for over 40 years. It's an organization that's not just local to Edmonton or Alberta or Canada. Crime Stoppers is present in all of our communities throughout the world and it's an organization that kind of hinges mostly on providing an opportunity for our communities to be able to report crime anonymously, and how that is different than just picking up a phone and calling the police. We find that over the years people have, you know, distanced themselves a little bit from, you know, wanting to go to court and the time to report an incident that they observed, incident that they observed be involved, because of, perhaps, safety and time commitments and so forth. So the anonymous factor comes into play and Crime Stoppers is a vehicle that provides that opportunity for people to be able to call, in text, in, you know, and get their information to Crime Stoppers, which, of course, we then take that information and we provide it to our police partners that would be in the jurisdiction of, perhaps, where that crime occurred.

Kristy Wolfe:

And you are located in Edmonton, specifically, but Crime Stoppers is across Alberta. You've mentioned that it's national as well, specifically, but Crime Stoppers is across Alberta, you've mentioned that it's national as well.

Mark Holik:

How does it work in Alberta? Yeah, so Alberta has right now four chapters. We have the Edmonton Northern Alberta chapter, we have Calgary and surrounding area, we have Red Deer as well as the Lethbridge chapter. So those four chapters pretty well look after the entire province. We have kind of an umbrella chapter that we have a board that helps those four chapters bring the crime prevention, educational programs to those those regions and and trying to work more in a collaborative state rather than in silos kind of thing. So yeah, we're covering the whole province and having some tremendous success in Alberta.

Mark Holik:

I can give you for an instance last year we recovered over $22 million worth of stolen property, drugs, weapons. We received over 13,800 tips in 2024. And that equates to about 810 tips that cleared cases for the police. So whether it was for the Edmonton police, rcmp, calgary Police, lethbridge, whoever but when you start looking at the value of those tips, not just on the property recovered side, but if you look at how many policing hours it would actually take for policemen to investigate a case, to bring it to a conclusion, where when you receive a tip you're able to in many cases solve that crime quite quickly and move on to the next. Hopefully you know, spending more time in the community and preventing crime rather than just solving it.

Kristy Wolfe:

Thank you for sharing all of that. I think that the statistics behind it. You don't always hear this information, so I'm glad you brought those out and kind of shared those statistics were specifically for Alberta as a whole, correct?

Mark Holik:

Correct. Yeah, that's for Alberta. You know, when you look at again, you know just the drugs alone how many lives did those tips save by taking that significant amount of of, um, the different types of drugs off the street, getting it out of the hands of, you know young people and and you know adults and and uh, just saving so many different families the grief of having to deal with, you know, overdoses and so forth. So we're obviously a long ways away from eliminating everything totally and perhaps that'll never happen, but the significant amount of tips that our community brings forth every single year makes a difference.

Kristy Wolfe:

You mentioned that people can call or text. Are there other ways to get tips to Crimestoppers?

Mark Holik:

Yeah, you can go online, you can text a tip or you can call it in Whatever you know. Um, you can text the tip or you can call it in whatever you know, whatever preference you have. We're trying to get out into you know, the community and and give everybody. An older person may just want to call because maybe they're not savvy on the computer or they don't want to text the tip in, but we're we're trying to give everybody an opportunity to do whatever is easiest for them and the most important thing is is that we're getting that tip and all those ways that we provide is protected and it's always anonymous.

Kristy Wolfe:

I appreciate that. How have you seen Crime Stoppers? I mean, we talked about the statistics, but how have you personally seen the difference that Crime Stoppers makes somewhere and the property that gets recovered?

Mark Holik:

And, you know, crime Stoppers, because it's important for us to keep these tips anonymous. We don't stand with the police every time they go in front of the media and say that, oh, we just did a big drug bust, or you know, we arrested these people for homicide or whatever the case may be. We don't stand there and say, oh, it was a Crimestoppers tip that led to these arrests, because oftentimes tips tipsters are very closely aligned to, sometimes, the people that are doing these crimes, and so we're, we're very careful that way. And, um, you know, through these awards, we hear the board, hears the, the street, the property that's getting recovered and returned to. You know, perhaps, a farmer that, uh that lost a tractor, or you know a senior that lost their handicapped vehicle, or, um, you know, the drugs that's getting taken off, or even, um, you know, I think last year I think, we had almost a hundred different weapons, uh, that were seized, guns that were taken off our streets. Those tips save lives and I love seeing that. It's probably why I'm still with Crime Stopper just by making the tip, but sometimes donating to Crime Stoppers in order for us to fund the rewards for these tips.

Mark Holik:

People see often, you know, when they donate to the Stollery or another organization, because there's some tangible things that they can kind of see. At the end of it, with Crime Stoppers, it's the difference you're making in safety for your family to be able to go to the park and not worry about being assaulted or your vehicle being stolen while it's in the parking lot or what have you. So, yeah, I do see things and I see them every single day.

Kristy Wolfe:

I'm hoping that you'll talk a little bit about a couple of the programs that Crime Stoppers have.

Mark Holik:

Before we get into some of the programs that we're doing now, I do want to say that, you know, for many, many years, when I first joined Crime Stoppers, when I joined, I thought I would be able to sit at a table with these wonderful people, because our board members are all volunteers and they come from all walks of life. We have, you know, current prosecutors, we have jail wardens, we have business people, we have principals from different schools. You know they're very committed and they're hardworking people, and so when I joined, I thought we would sit here and we would come up with, you know, maybe some educational programs and be able to offer some of my skills and problem solving or what have you. And what I found myself doing was we were all doing fundraising, because Crime Stoppers um always relied on. You know, my parents or my grandparents would send a check in to Crime Stoppers, to, you know, fill the coffers, and we would send checks anymore. And fundraising is still a big, big part of what we do.

Mark Holik:

But you know, I think, uh, it's important to note that the, the government grant that we got several years ago from the Alberta government um has has made such a huge difference in this province, um from many ways, and one is that obviously we're building a bigger and better Crime Stoppers um from many ways. And one is that obviously we're building a bigger and better Crime Stoppers um organization in this province through all of our chapters. But, more importantly, we've been able to take a little bit of focus away from just fundraising and we're getting involved in educational programs in the province and in a way where, you know, we're going out into the community, we're going talking to the youth, we're talking to the seniors and we're educating them and hopefully preventing crime but at the same time educating them about what Crime Stoppers is and how they can be involved today to help their community be safer. They can be involved today to help their community be safer. We know that. You know it's never going to happen. We're never going to be able to put a policeman on every single street corner. It's just not in the cards. Province and the municipalities don't have the money to be able to do that. They have great members.

Mark Holik:

Our police partners are, you know, I'd say, the best in Canada by far and they're great to work with. But they can't solve everything by themselves. They need us, they need our communities to be vigilant, be educated on the crimes that are going on out there. And then, of course, when people see things going on, they're suspicious about you know, uh, different things that might be going on on their street or what have you. They need to report that. So the police get a heads up and and everybody's kind of the eyes and ears for the police and not just the policeman that's driving down the street himself.

Mark Holik:

So, anyway, we're we're moving in that direction and the sign program, uh, sounds somewhat simple, but but we've been able to launch this in many communities across Alberta. We've made our inroads in with a lot of First Nations. What the sign program is about is really bringing that community together. No-transcript, we have communities that we didn't get very many tips from in the past. All of a sudden, tips are on an increase. We're able to solve some of the crimes that have been going on in some of those communities and it's working like a charm, and the more communities we talk to, the more requests we have.

Kristy Wolfe:

So I just a question around that do the communities come to Crime Stoppers or does Crime Stoppers identify communities and go to them and start that process?

Mark Holik:

Well, the way we started it was. You know, rcmp is obviously our biggest policing partner in the province because they're in a lot of the rural areas that you know. There's specific types of crimes that go on in the bigger cities and then there's different types of crime sometimes that go on in rural areas. So at first, what we did is we worked with the RCMP and looked at different areas that perhaps um needed some attention on, you know, let's say, vehicle thefts or or whatever the case may be. So that's where we started and, um, we did a little research. You know, uh media release and we had the the local um mayor or counselor there, along with your CMP and and um, uh community members, and then it's kind of grown from there.

Mark Holik:

Um, you know, anywhere we go, uh, I think Derek was just at uh, our executive director was just at a conference and and spoke with a bunch of people and those were the questions he was getting is how, hey, how can we get into this? How can we get some signage and let's get our community together and thinking about crime prevention and crime reduction, and it's really snowballed and it's growing and I hope that one day we'll have every single community plastered with Crime Stoppers signage and our anonymous call line number on there.

Kristy Wolfe:

That was kind of what I was thinking. I often ask people how others can give Amplify Connect to the organization, and you've mentioned everything from making donations that's how rewards are given. Donations that's how rewards are given. You've talked about being able from a community perspective. People could approach Crimestoppers about getting signage up in their community. Are there any other things off the top of your head that you would say? If people wanted to find out more or give back or get involved, where would you direct them?

Mark Holik:

The best way is to go on our websites, depending on where you live, and find out more there, but if not, certainly give us a call and we'd be more than happy to talk to whoever's interested in information, whether it's a donation, whether you want to become a volunteer for Crimestoppers, we have a great volunteer package that was just put together, so we'd love to get some of those out there. And you know, the more people that are talking about Crime Stoppers and providing tips anonymously to to our lines, the better our province is going to be and the more crime we're going to solve. We know there's lots of stuff going on out there and and we're a great way If somebody doesn't want to directly call the police, we're a very good way to deal with, whatever the situation is, the criminal activity that's going on, by providing us that information and we will get it to the right authorities to make sure they deal with it, investigate it.

Kristy Wolfe:

And then the other program that I would love you to talk about now. We're going to have Michelle from ACT Alberta come on the podcast as well, but there's a big focus on youth human trafficking, education and empowerment. Can you share a bit more about what that means?

Mark Holik:

Yeah, I mean, you know, this is something that's really dear to my heart.

Mark Holik:

It's something that I've been thinking about for quite a while.

Mark Holik:

Um, you know, youth, human trafficking, sextortion, those are um huge issues, not just in Alberta but not in Canada, it's all over the world and it's affecting um a lot of youth, a lot of families and and there's a lot of hardship. You know, I always knew that crime stoppers could play a part in this. Somehow I'll let um michelle do the big brief on it but from a crime stoppers uh point of view, you know, we're we're hitting the, the exact audiences that we want. We want to make sure that, um, our youth are informed about what human trafficking is all about, how it comes about, letting them know that it's okay to talk to somebody, sextortion, those kinds of things, and then, of course, educating also, not just the youth in our communities, but the parents and even the teachers. A lot goes into human trafficking and the grooming and all those things. So if not just the kids recognize it, but if the teachers recognize it or the parents recognize it, I think we could all together have some huge success in preventing this.

Kristy Wolfe:

I am really looking forward to talking to Michelle and learning even more about the program and from their perspective, because it is a collaboration between Crime Stoppers, act Alberta and Little Warriors, and I think there's going to be some interesting things that come out of it. Thank you for sharing that. All right, mark, I'm letting you off the hook pretty soon, but my question for you is who is a person or an organization that inspires you? I like to end Give Am hand or just information or contact, or what have you?

Mark Holik:

you know, kind of lean on each other in terms of, uh, you know, if somebody needs, uh, a helping hand or just information or contact or what have you, um, you know, and the fact that Santa's anonymous runs out of there, like it's just, I don't think people in Edmonton appreciate how great that facility is and what it's sort of provided for for not-for-profits. You know, we all are always struggling, looking for donations and funding for different things and, um, the fact that we can utilize that facility at a really reduced cost, um is tremendous. And the people that work there, uh, have been really impressed and and you know there's many that come to mind I think that's that's a an incredible one. And I think if there's a not-for-profit out and you know there's many that come to mind I think that's that's an incredible one. And I think if there's a non-for-profit out there, that's, you know you're renting somewhere and you're all kind of in your own little silo. Go and look up Jerry Forbes. It's a, it's a really tremendous facility.

Kristy Wolfe:

Sometimes I use this question as like oh, who else should I be looking at? But Diana Davis, the executive director of the Jerry Forbes Center, was on the podcast, so I will link to her episode as well. So if people heard that and they're like, oh, tell me more about Jerry Forbes, I'll put the link to her podcast and you can hear Diana talking all about Jerry Forbes Center. And I know that is where Crime Stoppers is housed in Edmonton, and so that just is another one of those cross pieces that we keep hitting on.

Mark Holik:

Diana is fantastic and, like I say, it's an invaluable resource, is what it is, and the fact that you can use it as your home is incredible. So we're very thankful for the opportunity to be there and we're really looking forward to many great things coming out of that. We're really looking forward to many great things coming out of that.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, mark, thank you so much for taking the time to come on talking about Crime Stoppers with us.

Mark Holik:

I assume that I will see you at the Jail and Bail in October, one of the fundraisers for Crime Stoppers and I look forward to it, absolutely October 16th, and we're hoping to raise some funds to continue the good work that we're doing in this province. So, yeah, thank you very much for having me on and, yeah, let's keep fighting crime together and make our community safer.

Kristy Wolfe:

Thank you for joining us today. The purpose of the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation is to give, amplify and connect. Visit our website www. w Wolfe packwarriors. com to learn more about this initiative or connect with us about a registered charity that is important to you. Don't miss the next episode. Follow, Give, Amplify Connect on your favourite podcast platform to hear from other Alberta-based nonprofits about the work they are doing. On a final note, remember to take care of yourself and your pack.

Intro:

Okay, you're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. Hush, my darling gonna be okay, you're gonna be okay.

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