Rural Manitoba town seeing a spike in crime

Residents of a Manitoba community are raising the alarm over rising crime rates. CTV’s Harrison Shin has more.

Residents of a small Manitoba town are raising the alarm over rising crime rates in recent months.

Manitoba resident A-Lynne Kiesman was in Ashern, Man., which is about two hours northwest of Winnipeg, on Tuesday. She said she’s noticed an increase in crime.

“There’s been lots of vandalism in the last month or so, for sure,” she told CTV News. “Lots of businesses have been broken into.”

The level has proven enough for area residents to make a new community Facebook group, called “Neighbourhood Watch – Ashern & Area,” just to voice their concerns.

“We get posts in the group saying that their sheds have been kicked in, bikes have been stolen, businesses are being robbed,” said Chelsey Kopp.

Kopp, a lifelong resident of Ashern, said that while a sudden surge in crime is not new to the town, this one is different.

“This just seems to be the worst that it’s been. It seems that the people committing these crimes can just keep going on about their day and nothing’s happening.”

Gary Campbell, chief administrative officer of the Rural Municipality of West Interlake, told CTV News the RM shares residents’ concerns.

“We are continuing to meet with community leaders, neighbouring municipalities, law enforcement and other partners to discuss solutions and identify ways we can work together to improve safety in our community,” he told CTV News.

Manitoba’s rural crime 2nd highest in country: Statistics Canada

On Tuesday, Statistics Canada released its study on police-reported crime in rural and urban areas in Canadian provinces, with the newest data from 2024. The study shows the Prairie provinces have the highest crime severity indexes – Saskatchewan at 219.4, Manitoba at 180.6, and Alberta at 141.9.

Though it is a four-point decrease from 2023’s study, the position of second highest in the country hasn’t changed.

Manitoba Justice Minister Matt Wiebe welcomed the decrease but acknowledged that the government has more work to do.

“The provincial government stands with you, and we’re putting the dollars to work,” he said on Tuesday.

“We’re making sure that we’re getting tough on crime and standing with law enforcement and your community leaders to really make a difference.”

Wiebe added that the driving factors of crime are not one single aspect.

“We want to be tough on the root causes as well. Our whole government is working towards making your community safer.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Manitoba RCMP said, in part, the challenges reflect a variety of socioeconomic, demographic and geographic issues.

“These issues are longstanding in nature and will not be solved by policing alone,” the spokesperson said.

“Nevertheless, we continue to invest time and resources into public safety initiatives, with the goal of staying ahead of crime through prevention, the smart use of information and strong collaboration.

“RCMP officers are working tirelessly every day to maintain public safety by removing illicit drugs, seizing illegal weapons and arresting offenders in our communities.”

‘Not surprised’

Both Kopp and Kiesman were not surprised to hear about the stats.

“(It) is very sad because your community should be safe for a small town – everybody kind of knows everybody, you look out for your neighbours, and that’s not happening right now,” Kopp said.

Both residents also mentioned police officers and retention.

“When you think of their schedule – even if they do week on, week off – we don’t want RCMP to burn out, and then they are not able to do their job properly,” Kopp said.

“There’s a very wide area that they cover here – so that is understandable that there may be a slow response time – but (it) has come to the point where their response time needs to be here at this moment.”

In Kiesman’s opinion, the number of officers should be doubled.

“(The government) keeps saying that they’re going to have the police presence in rural Manitoba, but it seems to be declining,” Kiesman said.

“And then, all of a sudden we get a few more officers, but then a couple of officers leave, and we’re back to square one.”

Justice Minister Matt Wiebe said funding for the RCMP has been on a steady increase.

“Eight million in this year’s budget, but going forward we’ve committed to a two per cent escalator for the police basket funding across the province that shows our commitment to the RCMP.”

Kopp said the town has been getting new businesses recently and is worried that the crime trend will bring a slam to the town’s growth.

“We have businesses that are being robbed daily. Small businesses, small town owners,” Kopp said.

“If the police and the government aren’t doing anything to protect them, our small businesses are going to close.”