Manitoba’s justice minister is appealing to the federal government for more police in the province and tougher bail standards for those who use knives to commit crimes.
Minister Kelvin Goertzen recently wrote a letter to federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino highlighting the high number of vacant RCMP positions in Manitoba, which the RCMP says was about six per cent last April 1, though the number fluctuates on a daily basis as transfers and reassignments take place. Nationally, the vacancy rate is 4.3 per cent, the RCMP says.
Part of the reason for the high number of vacancies is the RCMP Depot in Saskatchewan where new recruits are trained being closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in there being fewer new graduates at present to fill available jobs.
Goertzen says he has been told there likely won’t be enough new officers over the next few years to replace those who will be retiring.
“The result is that staffing levels in Manitoba are likely to become even more challenging in the near future,” he wrote. “This will be an untenable situation.”
Having too few officers is frustrating for Manitobans, particularly those in rural areas and the north, as well as Indigenous communities, where understaffed detachments don’t have the resources to respond quickly or at all to property crime reports.
“In rural and Northern Manitoba, violent crime is a particular issue, but probably what I hear most out of rural Manitoba — which is different, maybe than the city of Winnipeg — is more about property crime,” Goertzen told CJOB. “There aren’t responses to property crimes … People aren’t getting that sort of followup.”
Another issue resulting from understaffing is officer burnout, which creates a vicious cycle of further understaffing, said a representative of the union that represents RCMP member.
Bobby Baker, the Prairie region director of the National Police Federation, told CTV News that the recruiting situation is a crisis and is fuelling officer burnout.
“There’s a lot of overtime, and I’d say it’s unwanted overtime in most cases, and our officers are definitely getting burned out,” Baker said.
Thompson’s mayor told CJOB that having enough officers and new recruits isn’t a problem here, but she’d like there to be more experienced officers in her city.
“Our issue is, it’s all young recruits — our commanding officer positions are very lacking, and they’re stretched very thin in that area,” said Colleen Smook.
The RCMP told CTV that it manages vacancies to minimize the impact on the communities the force serves and often redeploys personnel from one area to another to ensure there are enough police in a given location.
Asst. Commissioner Rob Hill, who became the commanding officer of the Manitoba RCMP this summer, told the Thompson Citizen in an early August interview that the force needs more officers.
'We are looking for people to join us,” he said, noting that the RCMP isn’t immune to the factors contributing to labour shortages throughout the economy. “We’re competing for the same people and many other industries are as well.”
Goertzen also wants the federal government to take knife violence more seriously.
He issued a statement Aug. 25 to say that he had written to federal Justice Minister David Lametti asking for Criminal Code changes that would apply tougher bail standards on people accused of committing crimes involving knives. Currently, when a person is charged with committing an offence using a firearm, it is more difficult for them to make bail.
“We know that in many acts of violence, knives are the primary weapon,” Goertzen said. “Given the prevalence of violent crimes committed with knives, both in Manitoba and Canada, this is an important change in the interest of public safety.”
