A must-read article about the ever-increasing Winnipeg Police budget, featuring comments from us, as well as @bronwyn_dl and @CAIJ_UW!

#AbolishTheWPS https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/advocates-ask-why-winnipeg-police-service-is-getting-more-when-community-groups-are-getting-less-1.5123946

Imagine if this was the budget for any other department in Winnipeg. Every politician would be campaigning on cutting it. There would be mass layoffs and hiring freezes. But because it's the cops, all the claims to "fiscal responsibility" go right out the window.

#AbolishTheWPS

LOOK AT THIS.

These are the top paid employees of the City of Winnipeg in 2019. 6 of the 10 are police. The mayor isn't even on the list.

Almost 1,300 cops earn over $100,000. This is why our transit, libraries and community organizations are cut. For the cops.

#AbolishTheWPS

Absurd for police board chair @MarkusAChambers to claim that things like gasoline and training are getting more expensive, which justifies the budget.

Materials, parts & supplies cost $5.8 million in 2020. Salaries & benefits cost $260 million. Pretty clear what the problem is.

The cops themselves admitted in a recent budget presentation that salaries and benefits were essentially the only reason for their rising budgets (as every other department is frozen or slashed).

Council doesn't run this city, the cops do. That's why we have to #AbolishTheWPS.

Similarly, cops are constantly complaining the number of police per capita is declining in Winnipeg.

Yet the cost of salaries and benefits keeps going up. Fewer cops are getting even more money. And now they're trying to convince us the problem is they don't have enough funding.