A right to a safer community

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/01/2025 (237 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In late November, Coun. Shaun Cameron (Ward 4) spoke to delegates at the Association of Manitoba Municipalities convention about a growing concern among Brandonites regarding high-risk youth residential facilities in the city.

He discussed the absence of consultation between the city and provincial government regarding the locations of the homes, saying that Brandonites are often unaware that a home has opened in their area until problems start occurring.

Cameron told the delegates that the homes are driving up Brandon’s police, fire and EMS service costs. He revealed that just one facility was visited 150 times by law enforcement officers in 2022, and added that the facilities often house high-risk offenders, creating a significant safety risk in neighbourhoods.

Cameron was right to raise those concerns, as they impact the safety of all Brandonites. The reality, however, is that the group home issue is just one component of a larger problem.

Last week, I wrote about the unprovoked assault of a 67-year-old man on Jan. 15. He was with another elderly person at the southwest corner of Seventh Street and Rosser Avenue when a younger man approached him and hit him on the head with a baseball bat. Thankfully he wasn’t killed, but he could have been.

Dexter Kyle Wambdiska was arrested in The Town Centre parkade shortly after that. He was in possession of a bloody baseball bat, and his pants were reportedly covered in blood.

Wambdiska has a long history of violent criminal behaviour, including 22 convictions for violence and assault causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon, armed robbery and assault of a peace officer, in addition to three convictions for possessing weapons for a dangerous purpose.

The day before the assault, Wambdiska was convicted in Winnipeg provincial court for several offences, including multiple counts of assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon (a machete) for a dangerous purpose and resisting arrest.

He was sentenced to just 177 days of jail time for those convictions, but was released that day based upon time already served.

Those facts give rise to some serious questions: Why was a man with a history of convictions for violent criminal offences given such a light sentence? Was he on probation and, if so, on what conditions? How did he get to Brandon so quickly after leaving the Winnipeg court house? Where was he living? How did he get a baseball bat?

More importantly, how many other people like Wambdiska — adults and teens — are roaming our streets?

That’s neither histrionics nor hyperbole. As part of my recovery from cancer, I walk a lot of miles, often very early in the morning. Over the past two years, I have seen countless people passed out on streets and sidewalks in neighbourhoods all over the city.

I’ve seen a growing number of dangerous-looking people walking our streets, and others carrying what are obviously stolen goods.

I’ve had my life threatened four times in the past year, and each time the person making the threat wasn’t joking.

Given that reality, you can’t blame me for taking community safety seriously.

In past columns, I have argued that Brandon has the capacity to address the needs of troubled people from Brandon and Westman, but that we do not have anywhere near the capacity to solve the problems that are unfolding in Winnipeg and other Manitoba communities.

I have also written about the growing number of people who are committing serious crimes in Brandon, yet have no connection to our city. One example is a woman from a community north of here who was charged with manslaughter, but released on bail on the condition that she reside in Brandon. Days later, she was charged with stabbing someone here.

I have also discussed the fact that the homeless population in the city seems to rise every time homeless encampments are taken down in Winnipeg.

Somebody is bringing those people to Brandon, in bulk.

That perception appears to be reinforced by the findings of a survey conducted by the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation last October, which found there were at least 229 people who were homeless in Brandon at that time.

Of 70 people who were asked how long they have lived in Brandon, almost one-half had come here in the past three years.

If such a high percentage of our transient and homeless population are new to the city, what is bringing them to Brandon?

Who is bringing them here, and why?

Are we importing the problem from other communities that are only too happy to hand it to us?

I have received positive calls and emails from readers all over North America regarding last week’s column, but there have also been some who have suggested that Brandon would be better off if we didn’t disclose or discuss incidents like last week’s bat attack.

They say we are exaggerating the problem and making the city look bad. Others say these problems happen in every city, so we should just accept them as being part of city life.

I disagree.

Brandonites have a right to be safe and feel safe wherever they go in this city, at any hour of the day and night.

If the city is becoming less safe — and there is plenty of evidence in support of that conclusion — citizens have every right to ask why it is happening, and every right to expect the situation will be fixed.