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I’ve been making the same case for years — not out of emotion or political gain, but based on facts: Winnipeg needs more police officers. When I chaired the Winnipeg Police Board, I raised the issue repeatedly. When I served on City Council, I said it time and again. Now, in 2025, the numbers are finally catching up to the argument — yet the city’s political leadership still hasn’t.

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We had the same number of patrol cars on the street in 2020 as we do today. However, Winnipeg is not the same city it was five years ago. In 2020, our population was roughly 766,900. Today, it’s over 866,000 — a 13% increase. Our geographic footprint has also grown, with new developments across the southwest, CentrePort, and Waverley West. The workload for frontline officers has exploded, but the resources haven’t.

This isn’t just anecdotal. It’s a planning failure.

According to Statistics Canada, there were 71,472 police officers in Canada in 2023, up slightly from 2022. Despite that increase, we now have fewer officers per capita than we did the year before. In fact, 2023 saw the lowest police-to-population ratio since 1970: 178 officers per 100,000 residents. Manitoba falls slightly below the national average at 176 per 100,000.

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