Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 7/9/2014 (2204 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

I will admit there have been several times during this civic election campaign when I secretly wished Winnipeg police Chief Devon Clunis was running for mayor.

Of course, it's highly unlikely Clunis will ever trade in his badge for a career in politics. The chief appears to be, for all intents and purposes, far too sane a man to want that kind of grief.

Still, in a mayoral campaign that has been long on rhetoric but very short indeed on concrete ideas, Clunis's vision for the future of the Winnipeg Police Service, and for the city itself, appears more ambitious than any of the current crop of mayoral candidates.

Case in point: Last week, David Sanders, the citizen-watchdog-turned-mayoral-candidate, challenged the Winnipeg Police Board to make missing and murdered aboriginal women a regular agenda item. Sanders' proposal comes as the country is locked in an emotional debate about whether to call a national inquiry into the issue.

"We need an honest and sustained dialogue within both the aboriginal community and the community at large to better understand these complex and sensitive matters," Sanders said.

Sanders is a smart and likeable man who, unfortunately, demonstrated with his proposal there is a very large difference between citizen watchdog and prospective mayor. As someone seeking to lead a government, Sanders should be doing more than asking someone else to study a problem. He should be coming up with ideas on how to deal with the circumstances that continue to make aboriginal women disproportionately vulnerable to violence.

Clunis, responding to Sanders' proposal, sounded much more mayoral. "There has been a long, historic marginalization, and many of the issues we're facing in our community today are because of that," Clunis said. "If anyone's not willing to stand up and say that, and face that, and say the only way we're going to rectify those issues is first by rectifying the cause... we're never going to rectify what we're seeing."

Amen brother.

In one quote, Clunis demonstrated more leadership than all of the other mayoral candidates combined. To date, several mayoral hopefuls, have supported the call for a national inquiry. Most have said the city must do more to support marginalized women and deal with the root causes -- poverty, substance abuse, familial and economic dysfunction -- that make them so vulnerable.

And yet, beyond acknowledging more should be done, we've seen few concrete ideas.

Those candidates looking for a good idea to get behind need only look to the WPS, which, under Clunis's stewardship, has made important strides in addressing the underlying conditions that make aboriginal women, and other socio-economically challenged women, so vulnerable.

The Smart Policing Initiative spearheaded under Clunis's watch has shown us a new and more thoughtful approach to public safety. Neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood, block-by-block engagement with vulnerable people. A multidisciplinary approach, so cops, teachers, health-care providers and social workers are moving together, all doing only what they are best at.

Last year, we saw the arrival of two different operational reviews of the WPS. The first, initiated by council, turned into a farce when it was revealed that parts of the final report were actually copied, verbatim, from a previous review of police in San Antonio, Texas. The second, produced by the Canadian Police Association in concert with the Winnipeg Police Association, called for a significant increase in resources for SPI in the form of civilian analysts. The price tag is thought to be in the $2-million range.

This is an idea that runs contrary to the typical campaign pledge on policing and public safety, which is namely to hire more police officers. Of all the mayoral hopefuls, only Judy Wasylycia-Leis has shown any acknowledgement of the solid foundation Clunis and the WPS have built to date.

Wasylycia-Leis pledged support for SPI and other community-based programs -- including more foot patrols and SPI analysts -- but the levels outlined are simply inadequate given the magnitude of the problem.

One would think that after calling for a national inquiry into violence against aboriginal women, the mayoral front-runner could do better than four SPI analysts.

The blueprint for positive change is sitting right there in front of the mayoral candidates. Unless someone adopts that blueprint, seizes the moment and wins a mandate from voters to make some real change, we'll spend the next four years acknowledging the problem, but providing no solutions.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca