The City of Winnipeg is hosting five online public events between January 18 and 26, 2022 to “learn about police funding models from a live presentation and then break out into smaller groups to discuss the models.”

The city is also hosting a telephone town hall event on January 25, 2022 at 7 PM. For all events, participants must register in advance. To help folks out, WPCH has prepared suggested scripts that can be used to inform discussions at these various city-led events.

Shorter version:

Hi there, my name is [insert name] and I’m a resident of Winnipeg.

I am speaking today to voice my dissatisfaction with this public engagement process on the police budget. City Council needs to acknowledge the well-documented community demands to reduce funding to the Winnipeg Police Service and reallocate its enormous budget to other services.

The Winnipeg Police is set to spend $320 million in 2022, over one-quarter of the city’s budget. Yet there is no funding model option in the city’s survey that will reduce the police budget by any amount.

According to a Statistics Canada survey released in 2020, Manitoba is “rock bottom among the provinces on the issue of trust in police.” The same survey found that an estimated one-third of Winnipeg residents supported reducing police funding.

I’m concerned that the City is trying to silence community voices calling to defund the police and to shield the police from scrutiny, from accountability, and from real public input.

I disagree with all the models provided in the survey because none reflect the demand for defunding the police. This whole process is rigged in favour of more police spending. Thank you.

Longer version:

Hi there, my name is [insert name] and I’m a resident of Winnipeg.

I am speaking today to voice my dissatisfaction with this public engagement process on the police budget. City Council needs to acknowledge the well-documented community demands to reduce funding to the Winnipeg Police Service and reallocate its enormous budget to other services.

The Winnipeg Police is set to spend $320 million in 2022, over one-quarter of the city’s budget. This is a larger slice of the budget pie than most cities in Canada, including across the Prairies. Meanwhile, many other departments and services are facing ongoing cuts and layoffs. Yet there is no funding model option in the city’s survey that will reduce the police budget by any amount.
According to a Statistics Canada survey released in 2020, Manitoba is “rock bottom among the provinces on the issue of trust in police.” The same survey found that an estimated one-third of Winnipeg residents supported reducing police funding.

Also in 2020, the local grassroots group Justice4BlackLives Winnipeg released an online petition addressed to Mayor Bowman, the City, and the Province.  The petition calls for defunding/abolition of the WPS and has received more than 120,000 signatures.

So, I would like to know why long term defunding isn’t an option on the city’s survey. There were mass movements in 2020 including in Winnipeg to protest police violence and giant budgets. The city’s own survey data also shows that satisfaction with police response is plummeting despite annual budget increases.

I’m concerned that the City is trying to silence community voices calling to defund the police and to shield the police from scrutiny, from accountability, and from real public input.

I disagree with all the models provided in the survey because none reflect the demand for defunding the police. For this city process to have any credibility, there would need to be an option to reduce the police budget in Winnipeg. As it is, this whole process is rigged in favour of more police spending.

Thank you.