Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 25/9/2014 (2187 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

BRANDON -- It is the issue no mayoral or city council candidate wants to talk about, and yet it is the budgetary challenge that will most confound them should they be elected.

The exploding cost of policing is something municipalities throughout Canada are grappling with. Between 2001 and 2012, total spending on policing grew from $7.3 billion to $13.5 billion -- a whopping 85 per cent.

With policing costs consuming larger portions of cities' operating budgets each year, city councils are being forced to make increasingly difficult choices between passing on those growing costs to taxpayers through tax increases or cutting spending on items such as infrastructure and recreation. Fearful of taxpayer backlash over tax hikes, they often take the easy way out, slashing allotments for pools, potholes and other vital needs.

Two studies released in the past six months have questioned whether Canada's local governments are getting value for their policing dollars. In March, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute concluded "despite rapidly rising costs, Canadians are not getting all the police they pay for."

"Canada's police are pricing themselves out of business," the report said. "Police budgets have increased at a rate double that of GDP over the past decade, while calls from the public for service have remained stable. Police associations have been happy to stoke public fears about safety, but the correlation between numbers of officers, crime rates, and response times has long been shown to be spurious."

Earlier this week, a report released by the Fraser Institute questioned whether many of Canada's cities have too many police officers. The report's author, Livio Di Matteo, concluded "taxpayers can face higher costs for police than the crime rate or other socio-economic factors warrant."

Di Matteo found Manitoba has more police officers per capita than any other province and Winnipeg, with 189 officers per 100,000 citizens in 2013, was tied with Thunder Bay for the highest ratio in the country. Though Brandon was not examined in the study, its ratio is 174 officers per 100,000 citizens. Both cities are well above the national median of 160 officers.

It was also revealed earlier this year that police officers in Brandon and Winnipeg are among the highest-paid in Canada. Indeed, of the 67 City of Brandon employees who earned six figures last year, 45 were members of the Brandon Police Service. That means more than half of Brandon's 85 cops earned in excess of $100,000 -- and that was before the latest wage increase.

With numbers like that, the escalating cost of policing and its impact on other important areas of annual operating budgets should be dominating the election campaign agenda in each city. But it isn't. And it's not because there is a shortage of ideas.

Indeed, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute argues "a great deal of work now done by highly trained, well-paid, and experienced uniformed officers is only tangentially related to law enforcement and could be done as well or better and more cheaply by someone else, freeing police to do their core job." They recommend having forces share or contract dispatch, tactical teams, forensics, media relations, background checks and investigations.

Some American jurisdictions have already "civilianized" a number of activities traditionally performed by police officers, including the use of lower-cost civilian investigators for non-violent crimes, resulting in a significant amount of savings.

Given the size of potential savings, and the demand for spending on other pressing needs, why isn't a single candidate for mayor or council in either Winnipeg or Brandon talking about this issue and proposing solutions?

The answer is obvious. Promising to put more "boots on the ground" is a vote-getter, but being labelled as "soft on crime" and incurring the wrath of the local police union can kill a campaign. Every candidate knows that, and that explains the silence about a budget issue that will become even more serious over time.

Nobody wants politicians meddling in the operations of police departments, and there is a plausible argument the reduced crime rate is because of the extra officers, but there is a pressing need for dialogue and debate about how Manitoba's two largest cities can continue to afford exploding policing costs, and whether there are more affordable options available.

If we can't have that discussion during an election campaign, when is the right time?





Deveryn Ross is a political commentator living in Brandon.

deverynrossletters@gmail.com Twitter: @deverynross