The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
Back in the 1990s when I lived in Langdon, I made frequent trips to Winnipeg, sometimes twice a week and most often took care of business, ate meals, stayed in hotels and attended football games in Winnipeg’s west end.
Apparently, that part of town has changed dramatically since the ‘90s and nobody seems to know what to do about it.
Crime, which was always restricted to the downtown area and almost always at night, has shifted. The crime rate in the west end has increased dramatically and despite the largest shopping mall in Manitoba being located in the west end, thieves and thugs have become more brazen.
Violent crime is up across the city and Winnipeg now has the dubious distinction of having the highest crime severity index of any metropolitan area in Canada.
It used to be drugs and prostitution in a downtown area locals call the core. During the day there was banking, commerce, retail and hospitality going on in downtown Winnipeg. At night it was completely different.
There are now as many homicides in the city of Winnipeg as there are in Montreal, a city that has more than twice the population as Winnipeg. Some of those homicides are occurring on the west end. But that’s only part of it.
Some other examples of property and violent crime in Winnipeg’s west end include someone being attacked with an axe, vehicles broken into and property stolen, sexual assault and drug possession. In addition, several people from North Dakota have reported crimes against them, most notably cars broken into, cars keyed or tires slashed.
You have to wonder if it’s safe to shop at Polo Park Mall any longer. And believe me, plenty of people from northeastern North Dakota shop at Polo Park.
Between 1996 and 2000, I spent a lot of time shopping in that mall, going to restaurants, stopping at pubs and chatting it up with people in the mall.
Never once did I ever feel threatened nor did I see any shady activity in and around the mall, the football stadium or the Canad Inns Hotel that would indicate pending violence. Before I was married, my girlfriend and I spent time there and after I got married, my wife and I shopped there…. never a threat against either of us.
Granted, it’s 30 years on, but what changed?
It’s most likely a combination of things and one of them is people are committing violent crimes to support a drug habit and a place like Polo Park is an easy target because of the shear number of people who are there during various times of the day and night.
Another is indigenous women. For some reason, the entire city of Winnipeg has a serious problem with First Nations women being assaulted, kidnapped and killed. Others have disappeared off the streets and are never found.
The suspects in those cases are generally, but not always First Nations people. The police have never explained why because Winnipeg has about the same indigenous population as other major cities in western Canada.
Since 2000, the west end has become a very diverse neighborhood and when you look at the six homicides that have occurred thus far this year, they are indigenous, Greek or Russian. The rest of Manitoba has the same trend.
Seven homicides have occurred outside the city of Winnipeg and five of them have occurred on reservations.
I want the old Winnipeg back. It’s a city with a population the size of North Dakota’s population and back then the homicide rate and violent crime rate was about the same as North Dakota. Now, it resembles a larger metropolitan area. In 2021, Winnipeg had 43 homicides and North Dakota had 17.
Culture, professional sports, horse racing, concerts and other things are happening in Winnipeg all the time. But if the crime rate continues to rise, those of us from North Dakota will have to think twice about spending a weekend there.
(Marvin Baker is a news writer for the Kenmare News and formerly Foster County Independent.)
