The Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) proudly showed off the newest tool in its law enforcement arsenal last week: a \u201creconciliation\u201d cruiser, featuring symbols from Anishinaabe and Inuit cultures.<\/p>\n
\u201cReconciliation requires action,\u201d WPS Chief Gene Bowers told reporters on June 30. \u201cThis cruiser will be used to create spaces to share, listen and learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for the force\u2019s critics, the timing of the symbolic gesture could not have been more inappropriate.<\/p>\n
The event unveiling the cruiser \u2014 which includes animals from Anishinaabe culture\u2019s Seven Sacred Teachings, and an ulu (blade) and kayak representing Inuit culture \u2014 coincided with a ten-day drug enforcement crackdown advocates say disproportionately harms Indigenous people.<\/p>\n
The policing blitz targets people who use drugs openly on the city\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n
Dawnis Kennedy, an associate criminal justice professor at the University of Winnipeg, found the new cruiser design \u201cunsettling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t change that relationship, it doesn\u2019t change that gut feeling,\u201d the Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation member told IndigiNews.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an Anishinaabe woman, the sight of a police cruiser for me still generates fear from traumatic interactions with police.\u201d<\/p>\n
About twenty years ago, Kennedy recounted being knocked to the ground during a sweep in Winnipeg\u2019s North End neighbourhood. Her son recently had a run-in with WPS officers, she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To her, \u201cart is supposed to be uplifting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing of the reconciliation cruiser\u2019s launch outside police headquarters came amidst questions about how the 10-day anti-drug sweep would affect the overrepresentation of Indigenous Winnipeggers caught up in a cycle of addictions and homelessness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Experts say<\/a> disproportionate rates of poverty and addiction among Indigenous people are often rooted in experiences of colonial trauma<\/a> \u2014 including from the foster care system, the Sixties Scoop, the intergenerational impacts of residential \u201cschools,\u201d and violence from authorities, particularly police.<\/p>\n Kennedy said repeated calls to action and community-based solutions to these overlapping crises \u2014 including from the Manitoba Justice Inquiry, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission \u2014 are still being ignored.<\/p>\n \u201cThe strongest calls are about reestablishing Indigenous justice systems and investing in that,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n But instead of heeding those calls for government investments, she added, most of the Indigenous justice system work in the community \u201cis done on a shoestring budget,\u201d often relying on grassroots fundraising campaigns and events.<\/p>\n Meanwhile Winnipeg police have seen annual increases to their budget. This year, the city increased its funding<\/a> to $371 million, up five per cent from 2025, and nearly 12 per cent above the year before<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAlways responding with increased budgets for institutions that have perpetrated colonialism \u2014 to me, that\u2019s not reconciliation,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n \u201cTraditional justice initiatives themselves are very underfunded, so doing harm reduction, addressing the intergenerational trauma and ongoing trauma of colonization, are often sidelined.\u201d<\/p>\n For the first time since 2013, Winnipeg has seen an increase in the ratio of officers to the population \u2014 climbing to 166.8 police officers for every 100,000 people last year, up 1.2 per cent from the year before, according to an Environment on Policing in Winnipeg 2026 report<\/a>.<\/p>\n She said putting more police officers on the street also comes with expanded powers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Also known as Bill 48, it allows police to involuntarily incarcerate any person \u201cso intoxicated by alcohol, drugs or other substances that they cannot safely remain in public\u201d \u2014 in some cases for up to three days.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can detain people without formally arresting them,\u201d said Bronwyn Dobchuk-Land, another University of Winnipeg associate professor of criminal justice.<\/p>\n The increase in both police powers and budgets coincides with multiple health crises in the city.<\/p>\n On May 7, Manitoba\u2019s Chief Provincial Public Health Officer declared<\/a> an emergency over skyrocketing HIV rates, which he linked to \u201cthe convergence of homelessness, mental health concerns, substance use and socio-economic inequality,\u201d through which \u201cIndigenous people are disproportionately affected.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you police people\u2019s survival strategies, you produce isolation, death,\u201d added Dobchuk-Land.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou make people go missing from the communities of people who love them and care about them.\u201d<\/p>\n By increasing police powers, she argued, authorities are in fact doing the opposite of what WPS\u2019s cruiser graphics signify.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like an attempt to rebrand what reconciliation is \u2014 and what we should accept,\u201d Dobchuk-Land said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIncreased police powers undermine self-determination and reconciliation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And if \u201creconciliation\u201d is rebranded as new police car artwork, \u201cthen I think we\u2019re being trained to lower our expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n Police Chief Bowers told reporters the police cruiser \u2014 which was designed by M\u00e9tis artist and WPS detective Brian Hunter \u2014 will not be used for enforcement on city streets.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rather, it will be deployed by the force\u2019s community relations department at powwows and other public events.<\/p>\n Hunter, the artist behind the cruiser design, explained<\/a> that he chose its colours \u201cto reflect the water, the sky and the land that we all live in together.\u201d<\/p>\n He wanted to make the artwork appear stitched or sewn onto the vehicle, \u201ca reference to the thoughtful work we\u2019re all doing as a community, as well as the important work that still needs to be done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was thinking about my own place as a person of Indigenous heritage working as a police officer, and the responsibility I carry being part of this colonial system.\u201d<\/p>\n The new cruiser was created \u201cin partnership\u201d with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC), an advocacy group which represents 63 First Nations as well as the non-profit Tunngasugit, which helps Inuit adjust to city life.<\/p>\n \u201cThis collaboration represents a meaningful step toward strengthening relationships, fostering understanding, and continuing to work together,\u201d the AMC posted on Facebook<\/a>, \u201cin support of First Nations families and communities impacted by the crisis of missing and murdered First Nations peoples.\u201d<\/p>\n The unveiling of the cruiser came just after an open house at which AMC officially opened its own Missing and Murdered Persons Unit.\u00a0<\/p>\n The WPS has supported AMC\u2019s efforts advocating to search local landfill sites for missing and murdered Indigenous people.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere has been a close relationship with that unit and the team at the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, working in collaboration with the Winnipeg Police Service, so I commend the [WPS] for this work that we\u2019re seeing today, but also the work that will continue on,\u201d said Kyra Wilson, AMC\u2019s Grand Chief, as she presented Bowers with a ribbon shirt and moccasins.<\/p>\n \u201cWe come together to ensure the safety of everyone, of course, but also for our very vulnerable populations that we see here in the City of Winnipeg.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to the new cruiser, the police force also began offering eagle feathers in the city\u2019s four police districts as an option when people are required to swear a legal oath \u2014 instead of the currently accepted religious texts, such as the Bible, which many Indigenous people associate with abusive Christian indoctrination in residential \u201cschools.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Manitoba law<\/a>, \u201can oath may be administered to any person while that person holds in their hand a copy of the Old or New Testament.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n (For those who won\u2019t swear on a Bible, the law allows for an \u201calternate form of oath \u2026 with such ceremonies, as the person declares to be binding,\u201d or else making a \u201csolemn affirmation or declaration instead.\u201d)<\/p>\n The new eagle feather option is \u201cabout making people feel \u2026 inclusion who are giving statements that are on some very difficult events often,\u201d Bowers said, \u201cbut give them that power and that feeling that they\u2019re being listened to and heard.\u201d<\/p>\n The police force\u2019s anti-drug sweep has drawn criticism from frontline community organizations, including Indigenous non-profits Tunngasugit, Ka Ni Kanichihk, and the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre.<\/p>\n Bowers said he met with a coalition of groups after they released a joint statement on June 26<\/a> about the force\u2019s anti-drug sweep.\u00a0<\/p>\n The organizations said they were not consulted before the WPS carried out its operation, raising \u201curgent concerns about the impacts of enforcement on public health, access to care, and community safety.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis heightened enforcement comes just days after a local outreach worker publicly reported being racially profiled and wrongfully detained while carrying out their work in the community,\u201d the coalition\u2019s statement added.<\/p>\n After the end of the enforcement blitz, the coalition issued a second release<\/a> decrying \u201cthe harms we were witnessing\u201d against vulnerable residents.<\/p>\n \u201cThese last 10 days have been the hardest for us in a long time,\u201d stated the joint statement.<\/p>\n They noted that one unhoused person had a fatal overdose \u201chiding in an unmonitored area,\u201d away from the places being targeted by officers.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the coming weeks, we hope to meet with WPS to ensure accountability for this campaign including a transparent review of its outcomes,\u201d the groups stated.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe a co-ordinated Winnipeg-made response to these complex issues that is grounded in human dignity will increase public safety.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At a June 26 press conference<\/a>, Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham said the \u201ccrackdown on open illegal drug use and drug trafficking\u201d came as a result of \u201cbusiness owners, people who work in the downtown, and people who want to simply use public spaces safely.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But for him it was also personal. \u201cI\u2019ve grown tired of looking out my office window and seeing the same thing,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n After receiving repeated complaints from merchants and other residents, Gillingham said he supports the force\u2019s declared \u201czero tolerance\u201d approach of confiscating substances and detaining individuals in a 72-hour detox centre.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the past few weeks, Chief Bowers and I have been speaking together about this issue,\u201d he said, \u201cand I support his action and the action of his officers in these days through this initiative,.\u201d<\/p>\n He insisted that he supports \u201cmore pathways off the street into care\u201d for people with addictions \u2014 but warned \u201cillegal open drug use and trafficking will not be tolerated in public spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople across the city have been telling us that they\u2019re tired of seeing fentanyl and other drugs used openly in bus shelters, parks and other public spaces,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is about public safety and about the image of our city.\u201d<\/p>\n He acknowledged Winnipeg shares similar social problems with most major cities in North America.<\/p>\n He said that \u201cpeople need connection to resources, to treatment, to long-term recovery, and to housing\u201d \u2014 but added that would not happen overnight.\u00a0<\/p>\n But not everyone agrees that his force\u2019s crackdown is really about the public\u2019s safety \u2014 noting that substance users are members of the public, and at significant risk.<\/p>\n \u201cIt hasn\u2019t made anybody safer,\u201d said community safety consultant Victor Mondaca, who co-founded Nahuen Consultation with his spouse Amanda. The couple offers training in harm reduction and reversing overdoses with naloxone.<\/p>\n \u201cThis actually increases the potential for individuals to die from drug poisoning.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Health Canada<\/a>, when people \u201chide their drug use or use drugs alone\u201d it \u201cputs them at risk of dying if they have an overdose\u201d and \u201cdiscourages them from seeking health and social services.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Since 2016, the agency has recorded<\/a> at least 56,631 deaths from apparent opioid toxicity. And Public Health Agency of Canada research found<\/a> \u201cthe majority of opioid-related deaths occurred when the individual was alone, indoors.\u201d<\/p>\n As Dobchuk-Land notes, the way for substance users to ensure their safety is by \u201cusing drugs together and in public,\u201d and working to \u201corganize themselves into groups\u201d such as encampments.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a solution to the problem of being isolated and houseless,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSame with using drugs together and in public \u2014 that\u2019s actually a solution to the danger of a poisoned drug supply.\u201d<\/p>\n For Mondaca, a frontline community worker with lived experience in recovery from addiction, the police\u2019s 10-day anti-drug campaign was less about safety than \u201cbecause the general public doesn\u2019t want to see suffering anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe police now have to go and sweep it under the rug,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s hiding the most vulnerable and the most suffering and removing them from plain sight, because it makes people uncomfortable.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t stopping the suffering, the trauma, this isn\u2019t stopping the substance use \u2014 this is only making it more dangerous for individuals to use substances.\u201d<\/p>\n In the last month, Mondaca recounted using naloxone to save three people who overdosed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only reason I find these individuals is because they\u2019re visible to me, because they\u2019re out in the open,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHad they been pushed out of those open spaces into back lanes and corners \u2026 we would not have found them, and we wouldn\u2019t have been able to help.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of the solution that Mondaca sees is by training Winnipeggers how to respond to overdoses, through teaching them how to give naloxone.\u00a0<\/p>\n