‘OVERWHELMING’: Thompson residents ‘don’t feel safe,’ says councillor

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A disturbing home invasion in which a man was stabbed in the presence of children on Christmas Eve is another example of why those who live in the city of Thompson increasingly feel less safe and more vulnerable to violence, says one long-time city councillor.

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‘OVERWHELMING’: Thompson residents ‘don’t feel safe,’ says councillor Back to video

“I think it’s fair to say the crime and the violence has become almost overwhelming in the past few years,” third-term Thompson councillor Duncan Wong said on Thursday.

RCMP reported this week that a 35-year-old man was stabbed multiple times while trying to get six children to safety during what police believe was a targeted home invasion early Christmas Eve in Thompson, a city of about 18,000 people more than 750 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

Despite being assaulted and stabbed multiple times after a group of males forced their way into a house, the victim was able to walk the children and a female homeowner to a neighbouring residence, before returning to the home and being discovered by police with serious injuries, and sent to hospital in critical condition.

Police say they are looking for 4-5 males, possibly youths or young adults, who were dressed in all dark clothing, wearing masks, and believed to be driving in a pickup truck.

Wong, a Thompson resident since the late 1980s who has served on city council since 2014, says he does not get easily surprised anymore when he hears about violent incidents like the one in Thompson on Christmas Eve, because he says those types of incidents are becoming more and more commonplace.

For years, Thompson has consistently ranked at or near the top of all communities in Canada for levels of violent crime, and on multiple occasions since 2017 has been ranked as the most violent community in Canada by a Maclean’s magazine ranking system that examines police data from all Canadian cities with a population of more than 10,000 people.

But Wong said he continues to be frustrated because he does not believe that Thompson has the authority or powers to combat violent crime at the municipal level, and he does not feel the current judicial or policing systems are effective at enforcing laws, or at properly punishing criminals and deterring crime.

“The justice system I believe is the biggest contributor to this issue, because when people are arrested it’s often just catch-and-release, and putting them right back out onto the streets,” Wong said.

He said he has also been a vocal advocate for years of increasing resources for local policing and enforcement in Thompson, because he would like to see far more officers out on the streets actively enforcing the laws.

“You have the laws and you have the bylaws, but if you don’t enforce them what is the point of those laws? We need more officers patrolling, enforcing and, if need be, arresting.”

In recent years, Wong says he and others have also become concerned about the increasing amount of public intoxication and drug use he says is “highly visible” in the city, and especially in Thompson’s downtown core.

“Some days it’s like the downtown is just a big party,” he said. “And when some people get drunk they get aggressive, so people just don’t want to go downtown anymore, because they don’t even feel safe.

“It’s sad what has happened to this community.”

Wong said as a councillor he will continue to advocate for judicial reforms and for increased police enforcement and presence in Thompson, but without changes he believes crime and violence will continue to “overwhelm” the city.

Wong is not the only municipal official to sound the alarm about crime and public safety in the province recently, as in an interview on Dec. 14, Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) President Kam Blight said AMM hears continuously from municipal leaders and residents about public safety concerns, and said the organization has statistics to back up the fact that residents are feeling less safe in their own communities.

“In 2023, the AMM commissioned an independent poll by Probe Research which revealed that only 5% of Manitobans feel safer in their community than they did three years ago, while 56% of Manitobans feel decidedly less safe in their community,” Blight said

Blight also placed blame for crime on the judicial system as he said “municipal officials are very frustrated with the practice of applying a catch-and-release approach to repeat offenders.”

— Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.