Carly Montgomery was in a city-run hot tub and watching her son play nearby in the main pool when she realized the man sitting beside her was masturbating.

Montgomery said at first she wasn't initially paying attention to the man, whom she has seen many times before at the free public swim at Winnipeg's St. James Assiniboia Centennial Pool.

"He was on his knees, in kind of a weird position, like not sitting down and kind of a little closer to me than is kind of comfortable and I looked over and that's when I saw him," she said.

Montgomery said when she realized what he was doing, she didn't know what to think.

"He was ingratiating himself, actively, into the jet of the tub. He didn't have anything exposed, he was doing it on top of his bathing suit, and I just kind of blanked," said Montgomery.

Montgomery quickly got out of the hot tub and reported the incident to staff, who called police, but the suspect managed to elude both.

Police confirm they are investigating the incident, which took place on Nov. 23, but Montgomery is calling on the city to have cameras and better protocols in place to protect the public.

"It just seems to me like having zero security safety measures, and having zero of that is something that we can change. Something, check IDs, give people identification cards, even if they're free, at least then we'd have a name and a phone number," said Montgomery.

Carly Montgomery gets a glass of water for her four year old son Owen. (CBC)

Over the last year, the City of Winnipeg has been working with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection to develop a new program aimed at combating child sexual abuse.

They have done risk assessments of city facilities, developed new protocols for reporting incidents of suspected child sexual abuse and modernized training for staff at city pools and aquatic centres.

Two weeks ago, the city's community services department was turned down for a $333,000 request to upgrade surveillance-camera upgrades at city pools.

The department had applied to a $1 million innovation fund but the committee for that fund denied the request on the basis that the facility upgrades should go through the city's budget process and not that particular fund.

The city wouldn't say if there are any security cameras at Centennial Pool currently, and councillor Mike Pagtakhan — who chairs the committee on protection, community services and parks — said that while he was very disturbed to hear about this latest incident he thinks the city is on the right track.

"We want to make sure that we have a safe environment and if there's any gaps, certainly if there is a need for a camera, that's something that we definitely need to talk about and budget for," said Pagtakhan.

Pagtakhan also said a system of signing guests in even if they pay with cash or show up for a free swim is something they could look into implementing.

For now, Montgomery worries about taking her son back to the public pool if the city doesn't do something more quickly to control or at least keep track of who is using their facilities.

"How do I take my son back on Wednesday for free swim? How do I do that? How do I maintain being a part of the community when the answer to the solution and finding out who this guy is, is that I'm supposed to call the police if I see him there again?" said Montgomery.