Winnipeg City Councillor Kevin Klein serving Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood
I watched in disappointment as the Winnipeg Police Board (WPB) approved the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) budget that offers little to address public concerns.
We'll be told the city continues with record investments in policing, increasing the budget by 2% annually. Simultaneously, the WPS has had to reduce its budget by five million dollars a year for the next three-years because of the failed attempt to alter the police pension outside of the legal process by some on council.
I receive calls and emails regularly from residents who have become victims of crime. Residents who call the police to learn nobody is coming. I read the Facebook groups for neighbourhoods in our city, all reporting increases in crime. Violent crime is up in 2020, and this budget provides no comfort to residents who are afraid.
How can one support a budget that doesn't address Public Safety, and this budget offers little comfort and no answers to those residents' concerns.