Manitoba leaders tout new safety officers, but frustrated shopkeeper not convinced they'll stem tide of crime

The province is hoping proposed tweaks to legislation announced earlier this spring will help rural municipalities address unique safety and social issues and free up local police to focus on more serious incidents.

In March, the Progressive Conservative government announced proposed amendments to the Police Services Act. Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen said it would give all municipalities more tailored options for addressing crime and public safety concerns and broaden the scope of community safety officer positions to complement traditional police work.

"There's still a significant vacancy rate and that impacts on communities that have that contract-policing arrangement with the RCMP," Goertzen said Wednesday at a rural campaign announcement in the city of Portage la Prairie.

"We've been working at ... layered policing options so that municipalities can find a way to have either type of enforcement, and then maybe relieve some of the pressure from the RCMP on more traditional forms of policing."

But one business owner reeling from repeated shoplifters and regular break-ins isn't convinced the idea will work.

Ajay Aggarwal, who owns several stores and a restaurant in Portage la Prairie, said the province's announcement for safety officers reads as more political than realistic. He says for every shirt he sells in a day at his clothing store, he loses two.

Two people marched into his store and ran out with roughly $4,000 worth of clothes last January, he said. He believes incidents like that are happening because offenders are getting out of jail too easily.

"They know they are going to be released … in half an hour or by [the] next day — that's it," he told CBC News.

His daughter Arishya, who helps run the businesses, agrees.

"When there's no consequences to your actions, people will only get more confident in doing the wrong thing. There needs to be a precedent set for these people," she said.

Shoplifters show up to the store in groups, spreading out and pocketing items, she said. At night, people break the windows, doors and anything they can in an attempt to get in.

"It's not easy being a business owner, when you're putting so much into the community … only to be rewarded with so much theft."

Arishya says she's doubtful as to whether the safety officers will be beneficial, since the qualms she and her father have are with the judicial system that comes after arrests are made.

"The problem lies after the RCMP," she said. "Unfortunately, the community safety officers aren't going to be the ones doing something after the [perpetrator] has been caught."

More boots on the ground don't necessarily make Arishya feel safer. She said people want to know how the safety officers are being trained, what their responsibilities are, and when to call them instead of RCMP in order to build trust.

"Once those kinds of questions are answered, I think business owners as well as community members of Portage la Prairie will be able to more aptly answer whether we think it's a good idea or not."

Goertzen said the hope is to have the amendments passed by June, and his department will work with rural municipalities to see where they can best make use of the new positions.

So far municipalities including Hanover and Ste Anne have expressed interest, and Dauphin and Swan River are discussing the possibility of a regional-level community safety officer system, he said.

The positions would be empowered to enforce provincial statutes and bylaws, said Kam Blight, president of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities. 

He said community safety officers could perform a variety of duties depending on needs of particular communities. That includes transferring people suffering a mental health crisis who ended up in police custody to health centres for care — something police do right now that keeps them from patrolling and other duties, Blight said.

"The AMM has long called on the Manitoba government to provide greater flexibility to move some enforcement and social services functions from police forces to other funded authorities," said Blight, who is also reeve for the rural municipality of Portage la Prairie.

"Today's announcement … recognizes the importance of having multiple resources at one's discretion and need for additional options when responding to situations that pose a safety threat."

Community safety officers would also be able to enforce road weight restrictions if the amendment passes, a change Blight says the AMM has called for for over a decade.

That would help municipalities protect local roads and infrastructure that take a beating during times of the year when heavy vehicles take detours through smaller local roads and highways to avoid weight restriction enforcement on larger highways, he said.

Finger-pointing at feds

Justice and policing are technically provincial responsibilities, but Goertzen, Blight and Mayor Sharilyn Knox, the mayor of the city of Portage la Prairie, all criticized a deal the federal government signed with the RCMP and suggested it is straining rural communities' ability to keep their communities safe.

The Canadian government reached a new deal with unionized RCMP officers in 2021 that promised to see salaries increase significantly at a time when the agency continues to struggle with recruitment and retention issues.

Goertzen sent a letter Wednesday to his federal counterpart asking the federal government to absorb retroactive pay to RCMP that "Ottawa negotiated unilaterally and without consultation."

"Now [RCMP] ratepayers at the municipal level are expected to pay for that, and it has an impact on community safety because it draws dollars from places that they could otherwise go to like perhaps SCOs," he said.

He, Blight and Knox think the federal government should eat the back pay and higher projected costs associated with RCMP policing moving forward as a result of the deal. B.C. mayors, the Saskatchewan government and others feel the same. 

Knox said 10 per cent of the city of Portage la Prairie budget goes to policing, and the city is now on the hook for $900,000 in retroactive pay to RCMP as a result of the federal deal.

She values the work of the 27 RCMP officers stationed in Portage la Prairie, but thinks they are often busy responding to the roughly 16,000 calls that come in annually in the city. She said some things fall by the wayside, such as downtown safety.

Knox said a high local poverty rate and lack of adequate mental health resources, and wait times for other health services, contribute to safety issues.

The perception of safety downtown could be remedied with a presence of community safety officers in the core, which she hopes could deter things like public intoxication, shoplifting, property crime and retail theft that make up a big chunk of the "petty crime" in the community.

"Our RCMP do a great job," said Knox. "But we have to get all these systems working together to see an improvement in our crime rates."