The Winnipeg police paradox: Mayoral candidates ponder spending caps and calls for better service

If it feels like you're hearing more about crime in Winnipeg, you would be right.

A CBC News analysis ofWinnipeg Police Service communications reveals the police are disclosing more incidents this year than they did in 2021.

Last year, police news releaseschronicled 528 separate incidents communications officers deemed worthy of letting the public know about. This year, Winnipegpolice are projected to disclose 627 incidents, based on the number of incidents reported up to Aug. 4. That would be an increase of 17 per cent.

The police service's public affairs director says the modest increase is not the result of arbitrary decision-making about what events are worthy of disclosure.

Instead, Kelly Dehn points to a series of high-profileevents this year, such as the trio of violent attacks in August along a three-block stretch of Main Street and random assaults at The Forks earlier in the summer.

"We've been dealing with a lot of serious incidents over the last little while and that's having a direct impact on what we'rereleasing on," Dehn said Thursday in an interview.

If the actual incidence of crime is the only factor governing police communications decisions, then Winnipeg has become steadily more dangerous since the start of the pandemic.

In 2020, the police only disclosed 435 incidents, an aberration Dehn attributes to a drop in crimes reported to police, staffing shortages in the police communications office and areducedinterest on the part of media at a time when COVID-19 was the dominant public concern.

The first year of the pandemic also coincided with the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a trio of fatal police shootings of Indigenous people within 10 days in Winnipeg and protests across North America over racist police actions.

While Dehn said the heightened attention on police played no role that yearin decisions about issuing press releases, he did concede the Black Lives Matter movementled his service to make fewer social media posts in 2020.

Police say election-year politics not at play

Similarly, Dehn said the fact this is an election year hasn't led to any discussions in his office about what to release or not release.

On Oct. 26, Winnipeggerswill choose a new mayor and council from a field of candidates with a variety of ideas about the future of policing. This will be the first municipal election since the long, fraught summer of 2020, and several candidates have made police policy an early plank in theirplatforms.

None of the most high-profile of the 14 mayoral candidates registered at this point has called for defunding the police, but most have pledged to make the police service more efficient or rein in police spending in some manner.

Scott Gillingham, the St. James councillor now running for mayor, issued a long crime-prevention plan that includes calls forpolice to resume thestatistical analysis of crime trends. He also wants Winnipeg police to revive joint efforts with the RCMPto combat organized crime and arrest habitual offenders who have warrants for their arrests.

Gillingham also pledged to expand on pilot projects that prevent police from responding to low-risk mental-health calls in favour of sending outreach workers with crisis expertise instead.

That'ssimilar to an early campaign pledge by rival candidate Shaun Loney, who wants to contractoutresponsibility for meeting the social-service needs ofrepeat 911 callers who place the heaviest demands on police.

Glen Murray, the former Winnipeg mayor seeking to reclaim his old job, wants to scrap the city's police helicopter in favour of drones and expand the use of police community support units, including in areas where lots of people hop on and off Winnipeg Transit buses.

Gillingham promised to hire crime prevention officers to serve on Winnipeg Transit buses and elsewhere once the provincial government changes legislation to allow the move.

Similarly,Kevin Klein, the Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood councillor vying for the mayor's job, promised to place sheriffs in hospitals to free up police resources, provided the provincial government agrees to allow such a move.

Klein has made a point of saying he would not claw back the Winnipeg Police Service's $320-million annual budget, which accounts for 27 per cent of the city's operating budget.

Gillingham said he would keep police spending increases at or below the rate of inflation, while rival candidate Robert-Falcon Ouellette, aformer Liberal MP, promised to freeze the police budget if he's elected mayor.

All of these promises about police spending must be taken with a grain of salt. That's because Winnipeg's mayor and council do not play any direct role in devising the police budget.

That responsibility lies with the Winnipeg Police Board. Effectively, all council does is choose whether or not to place a rubber stamp on thebudget it receives from the board.

Limited policy options

Even if Winnipeg's next mayor somehow managed to conjure up more control over police spending, his or her worship would find themselves with limited options to whittle it down.

According to the city budget, about 88 per cent of Winnipeg's police budget is devoted to police salaries and benefits$282 million out of $320 million overall.

Freezing those salaries and benefits would require the Winnipeg Police Association and the Winnipeg Police Senior Officers' Associationto agree to enshrine such a move within thecollective bargaining agreements the city negotiates with the unions.

The remaining $38 million worth of police spending includes the purchase of goods such as gas forvehiclesand services such as the maintenance ofequipment or psychologists for front-line officers.

In theory, the city could make drastic cuts to police spending by not hiring new officers or throughlayoffs. But those moves would only exacerbate the existing situation in Winnipeg, where police seem to struggleto respond in a timely manner toserious of calls.

Candidates of all ideological stripes seem to recognize police should not be playing the role of mental-health crisis responders, social workers or addictions treatment specialists.

But in the absence of aggressive, urgent action from the province and Ottawa on mental health, addictions, housingand poverty the social determinants of crime calls of this nature will continue to tie up police resources.

Those calls rarely, if ever, make it into police news releases. Perhaps Winnipeggers and the people who want to represent themwould adopt a more sober view of the challenges facing this city if police disclosed the nature of every 911 call.

• Read more from CBC on the 2022 Winnipeg election