View From the Legislature

On Tuesday Statistics Canada confirmed that for the third year in a row both the Province of Manitoba and the City of Winnipeg topped the list for violent crime in Canada. That will likely come as little surprise to many Manitobans who, almost daily, read or hear about a violent incident.

Perhaps most troubling about the most recent report is the fact that our province is bucking a national trend when it comes to violent crime. While almost all other provinces and large cities in Canada saw a decrease in the severity of violent crime that was not the case here. Manitoba as a whole saw its violent crime measurement remain unchanged and Winnipeg saw an increase from the previous year in its violent crime measurement. Part of that was driven by the fact that Winnipeg has seen a record number of murders last year and is on the same pace this year.

Police indicate much of the violent crime is a result of drug activity which has close connections to gang activity. That drug activity and the increase in guns is impacting all parts of the province.

Even communities in areas such as southeastern Manitoba are seeing changes in the types of crimes that are reported. To be sure, communities such as Steinbach and surrounding areas are safe and inviting places to live but are not insulated from the changes that growth and broader crime patterns bring. Reports this past week of incidents involving both real and replica guns in our region are not commonplace, but they are not as out of place as they once were either.

While it is not helpful to take the new statistics and overreact to them, it is certainly not a good idea to ignore or dismiss them either. The fact that our province’s violent crime rate is so high means we have more victims per capita than most other provinces. Each one of those victims represents a very personal story and long-term impact.

Hopefully the statistics provide a wake-up call for the province’s NDP government which has, for 13 years, promised to build a safer province. Clearly that promise has not been kept. They could start by focusing in on crimes related to drugs, illegal guns and gangs since they are interrelated and the cause of so much of the violence we see in the province.

Unfortunately, past reports have not been a wake-up call for the NDP government but rather a reason to hit the snooze button with the hope that nobody notices the growing problem. That approach can only lead to more and more victims and it’s an approach that is no longer acceptable.