View From the Legislature

New Integrated Policing Units

  • Kelvin Goertzen, Author
  • Member of the Legislative Assembly, Steinbach

Over the past several years a number of steps have been taken to better coordinate policing in Manitoba. While our province has a relatively small population compared to other provinces, it is large in size and has several different policing agencies covering that vast area. This means that there needs to be strong coordination between police entities to both share information and intelligence, but also to work together on investigations.

To both aid and encourage this cooperation, our government created the Manitoba Criminal Intelligence Centre (MCIC) to help in the sharing of information and to help fund operations based on analytic tools and evidence. Recently, Manitobans have seen the result of both coordination and strong police work in several high-profile and high-volume drug and illegal weapons seizures.

This cooperation is vital to the success of policing. It is also being seen in the formation of several integrated policing units that bring together officers from different police agencies dedicated to working together to address a specific area of crime or community safety.

Last year, this was demonstrated with the creation of the high-risk warrant unit that will bring together officers from the Winnipeg Police Service, the RCMP and other provincial police forces to target offenders who have outstanding warrants and who pose a threat to the community. This integrated effort will help ensure that even in a province as large as Manitoba, it will be more difficult for individuals to evade arrest.

On March 12th of this year, Manitoba announced another important integrated policing unit, this time to establish a province wide response to child abuse. To be housed at the Toba Centre for Children and Youth in Winnipeg, it will have dedicated police and operational resources from both the Winnipeg Police Service and the RCMP to investigate and address issues involving child abuse and exploitation.

Then, just this week, I was pleased to announce an additional $2.1 million in funding to help establish a provincewide Manitoba Integrated Missing Persons unit. Each year, thousands of Manitobans are reported missing to police. Often these individuals are missing chronically with young indigenous girls being the most vulnerable. The dedicated missing persons unit will provide a 24 hour response to both take reports and analyze cases to determine where to deploy resources in the most high risk situations.

Policing is increasingly complex and dangerous. Those who are looking to cause harm to others and to break the law are not restrained by borders and are often connected with others dedicated to the same activity across the province and country. Ensuring that we have both a coordinated and integrated response by police can make a positive difference in disrupting this criminal activity. I am grateful, as Minister of Justice, for the dedicated men and women of each of our law enforcement agencies who are working to keep our communities safe every day.