In some very strongly worded language, Mayor Tim Johnston lashed out last week at Manitoba Department of Justice bureaucrats for not seeing the issues of gangs and drugs in Thompson as any different from any other community in Manitoba.
"I hope they're prepared to accept blood on their hands," Johnston told council June 1, reporting on his meetings in Winnipeg during the week of May 19-22 with ministers and officials from a number of provincial departments.
Unlike most departments, Johnston noted, he was not able to meet with Manitoba Minister of Justice and Attorney General Dave Chomiak because a scheduled meeting was preempted by a last-minute need for him to be in the legislative assembly for a vote. Johnston instead met with officials from the department.
Johnston said Gary Ceppetelli, the city's director of planning and community development, who was also along on the trip, casually observed walking between meetings one day the city seemed to get a much better reception when they met with cabinet ministers - which they were able to do in most cases - rate than just departmental officials.
The view of provincial justice officials is that gang and drug problems exist everywhere in Manitoba, Johnston said, and it is up to communities to make their own choices about how to deal with those problems in terms of how they direct policing resources.
"They understand the issues in Thompson," Johnston said, but they [justice officials] think the municipality, as a regional hub, benefits economically in powerful ways, and so shouldn't just be looking at the negative aspects of crime problems being imported as the largest centre in Northern Manitoba.
The province believes Thompson can choose to use "our resources for policing as we see fit," including deploying more of them into fighting gangs and drugs.
The city's budgeted RCMP costs for last year were $3.466 million, Carol Taylor, the city's chief financial officer, told the Citizen last month, while this year the amount is expected to increase to a budgeted $3.508 million.
Insp. Ken Poulsen, the officer-in-charge of the Thompson RCMP detachment, told council June 1 that eight organized crime figures have been arrested in the city over the last year as a result of the deployment of officers from the organized crime intelligence unit out of Winnipeg to Thompson during that period.
The Thompson RCMP detachment has a complement of about 45 officers with about 28 of them assigned to the urban area in town. On a weekend there are usually about 14 officers on duty in the city at night - made up of two seven-officer watches. Thompson had 38 officers on duty here in January 2007.
Paulsen, who arrived in Thompson in 2007, switched roles with Insp. Keith Finn April 1. Paulsen had been the assistant district officer in the Manitoba North District Office and is now in charge of the Thompson amalgamated detachment.
Finn is still in Thompson as the assistant district officer in the Manitoba North District Office with a jurisdictional area outside of Thompson from roughly the 53rd parallel Grand Rapids area in the south to the 60th parallel and Nunavut boundary in the north - and from the Ontario boundary in the east to Saskatchewan in the west.
Both Paulsen and Finn report to Supt. Dave Asp here in Thompson, the commanding district officer for the RCMP's 'D" Division Manitoba North District Office.
Johnston said that as a result of the province's tough line on how Thompson will be treated on gangs and drugs issues, the city may indeed have to give additional thought to how RCMP resources can be best deployed and at what costs under the municipality's policing contract with the federal police force.
Next to about $9 million in wages for City of Thompson employees, the $3.508 million estimated cost of RCMP policing - roughly 31.5 per cent of salary totals expected this year for Thompson's civic employees - is by far the second largest outlay for the municipality by local taxpayers on an annual basis.
While the ranking of policing costs as the second most expensive item for the municipality after civic employees' wages and benefits has consistently remained in the same number two and number one slots respectively in recent years, the overall cost for both has increased inexorably.
For instance, just two and a half years ago - on Jan. 24, 2007, during budget deliberations for the 2007 budget - council projected civic employees' wages and benefits costs of $6.906 million and RCMP contract policing costs of $2. 834 million.
The overall budget has gone up from $18.082 million in 2005 to $18.381 in 2006 to $22.171 in 2007 to $24.537 million last year before being expected to hit a projected $25.497 million this year.
The city has long had a fractious relationship with the Manitoba Department of Justice, at least on some key issues. Persistent demands by various councils, going back more than 15 years under both NDP and Progressive Conservative governments for the province to build a remand centre in Thompson, have largely fallen on deaf ears. The nearest adult remand facility is The Pas Correctional Institution, about four hours away. Remanded youth are sometimes transported to Thompson from as far away as Winnipeg, 750 kilometres to the south.
Chomiak's visit to Thompson last Nov. 17 to meet "with community representatives" as well as Johnston and other councillors, as well as attending "a lunch meeting with community leaders interested in public safety and justice issues," according to Valdine Flaming, the city's communications officer, turned into something of a post-visit debacle.
It was discovered that even though it was national Restorative Justice Week, local Northern Restorative Justice (NRJ) board members here, as well as local media representatives, and some others working on justice issues in the community, had not been informed of the attorney general's visit until after it was over when the city sent out a news release. The city blamed the province, saying it was up to them to have publicized the visit, while the province declined to pinpoint blame but acknowledged there had been a communications mix-up with the City of Thompson.
"The city believes that discussion provided the minister with a better understanding of Thompson," Johnston said in the news release two days after Chomiak's visit. "We look forward to increased partnership with the provincial Department of Justice."
