Calling foul on playing host to contentious games

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This article was published 28/07/2023 (825 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The opening ceremonies of the World Police and Fire Games are slated for tonight at Canada Life Centre, with thousands of police and first responder athlete-competitors and their pre-approved family members and friends expected in attendance.

Those not approved to attend would likely include citizens who feel there is an unhealthy romance with law enforcement in our city and province, and who have issued and continue to issue calls to defund, reallocate services or abolish the police.

The games, which are set to run until Aug. 8, have been contentious since Winnipeg’s bid was accepted in 2017. Various levels of government are sponsoring the games, with the largest portion — $4.9 million — coming from the province.

Several city parks, provincial parks, sports clubs and recreation centres are closed to the public to provide venues during this 10-day stretch, limiting the access of Manitobans to these tax-supported amenities during scarce summer days. The Forks is serving as an athletes’ village, ensuring competition for elbow room in The Common. The opening and closing ceremonies are closed to the public, open only to “accredited” family and friends.

But it’s not only the games themselves and the cost, in dollars and lost access, to Winnipeggers, that has numerous residents concerned. It’s also the already fraught relationship between Winnipeg and its police.

The lush police budget contrasted with crumbling civic infrastructure should raise an eyebrow at very least. The purchases of robot dogs and armoured vehicles, while community services can’t afford to keep a bathroom open to provide the most basic of human dignity, should raise the other one.

Our police spending consumes 26.8 per cent of our entire city budget, the highest of any provincial capital. Yet, earlier this month Premier Heather Stefanson announced a further $10 million specifically for downtown surveillance by police.

The logic here is that with enough boots on the ground and cameras in the air, would-be criminals will recognize the potential of being charged, and thus behave better. That’s the optimist’s take. The pessimist will say more boots and cameras will be able to identify and remove these unwanted citizens more quickly and effectively, so the rest of us will feel safe. This raises two questions: who are “the unwanted” and who are “the rest of us?” Unfortunately, we know all too well.

From the early days when we sentenced our first premier to death for governing his own people on their own land, Manitoba has used law enforcement to control and advance colonial interests. Our first police chief was one of Lord Wolseley’s men, dispatched from Ottawa with close to 2,000 others to wrest control of this territory from the Métis by force, and replace their laws with the laws of the Dominion.

The Manitoba Mounted Constabulary evolved to become the North West Mounted Police, and eventually merged with the RCMP, instrumental in further removing people from land and children from families in the name of order and discipline. This philosophy and mandate of policing in Manitoba has been status quo for more than 150 years, and we are complicit in this legacy by continuing to overspend on and over-valorize law enforcement while underspending on our citizens who need our support.

Hosting these games and supporting law enforcement in this way is entirely fitting for a city that has only ever considered policing and violence the best tool of order and respect.

The downtown area set to receive Stefanson’s $10-million solution is home to some of the highest ethnic diversity and lowest incomes in the city. This initiative continues the dubious tradition of ensuring colonial rule by oppressing those least likely to be able to navigate the same system of which they are consistently running afoul.

Much of the desperation, poverty and illness that predicates crime is a generational byproduct of this same philosophy. Simply put, our intolerance of those who do not conform to colonial expectations is still being actively played out on our downtown streets and in our ledger books.

We may be tempted to declare, based on our history, that hosting the World Police and Fire Games here is inappropriate, a further twist of the knife. But hosting these games and supporting law enforcement in this way is entirely fitting for a city that has only ever considered policing and violence the best tool of order and respect.

Winnipeg is renowned for creativity and resilience, but we have been, and continue to be, entirely unimaginative and stubbornly committed to the power and role of police as a go-to remedy for society’s problems.

Having scores of law-enforcement personnel descend upon our city to be cheered, celebrated and catered to is but another ostentatious declaration of our dedication to the bluntest instrument we have to address crime, poverty and addiction in Winnipeg.

rebecca.chambers@freepress.mb.ca

Rebecca Chambers

Rebecca explores what it means to be a Winnipegger by layering experiences and reactions to current events upon our unique and sometimes contentious history and culture. Her column appears alternating Saturdays.

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