Winnipeg to receive funding to prevent gun crime

Ottawa announcing the City of Winnipeg is set to receive federal funds to prevent gun crime and gang violence in the city, but advocates say the city which ranks among the nations highest in homicide rates, should be prioritized.

The $4.5 million dollars from the Building Safer Communities Fund will be distributed by the city to community-led projects for young people involved in gangs, or those who are at risk of joining them.

“It’s available to community organizations, to Indigenous organizations to access those funds, as long as they’re prevention programs that have real community involvement,” explained Dan Vandal, Minister of Northern Affairs.

Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham says recent crime in Winnipeg has underscored the need for this type of funding.

“We’ll be in a stronger position to address these issues and ensure safety in for people our public spaces.”

Back in March of 2022, the federal government announced the BSC fund of $250 million.

Kent Dueck from Inner City Youth Alive in Winnipeg says the $4.5 million announced is extremely low.

“Right now, the North End, the community I work in, has a murder rate of 102 per 100,000. Vancouver’s downtown East side, which we often think about having lots of challenges, is at 39 [murders] per 100,000. So, they need to be thinking about, again, where the concentration of crime is,” he explained. “It’s definitely scrony when you think about the scale of what we are dealing with in our community.”

Dueck says he feels Winnipeg is always undervalued and overlooked.

“[The funding] is going to have to be dispersed amongst so many, so I worry that it will get watered down and it will not move the needle on the issue of violence.”

Outreach worker, Mitch Bourbonniere says $4.5 million sounds like a lot of money, but in the bigger picture, it’s less than one per cent of what the feds are giving out across the country. He says it’s worrying.

“Winnipeg, for a number of different reasons, is an epicentre and a barometer around youth issues, guns and gangs, poverty. We certainly in Winnipeg deal with all of those issues intensely.”

Bourbonniere says every neighbourhood across the country, including Winnipeg, needs advocacy, wrap around services, and mentorship, because without that, he says violence will continue to get worse.

“My dream is that every child, every family in every neighbourhood gets the attention it deserves.”