As of September, 1956, ten different municipal police forces were maintained in the Greater Winnipeg area, ranging in size from the three man force in the Village of Brooklands to the four hundred man force of the City of Winnipeg. Three of the smaller communities, Tuxedo, Charleswood and North Kildonan — received police protection from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, under arrangements whereby they paid a portion of the salaries of locally stationed constables. Table 1 indicates the size of each police force operating in Winnipeg, as of September 1956, together with the ratio between population and police, and the cost per capita of police protection in 1956.
The greater number of policemen in relation to population, and the substantially higher cost per capita of police protection in Winnipeg, reflect primarily the fact that the incidence of problems which require police attention is much higher in Winnipeg than in the suburbs. Crime is more likely to occur within the City. Here are located the majority of the business establishments of the metropolitan area, many of which stock valuable merchandise, and handle large sums of money, and therefore invite the attention of criminals. Downtown slum and semi-slum districts produce a variety of police problems. The City's numerous cheap hotels and rooming houses afford accommodation suited to the needs of footloose elements, many of whom are prone to break the law in one way or another; the suburbs, on the other hand, contain little accommodation of this type, being comprised chiefly of single family dwellings occupied by permanent residents and their families.
Table II presents the figures the figures for automobile accidents, in Winnipeg and the largest suburbs, for the year 1956. (1) The figures clearly reflect the higher incidence of traffic accidents in the central City, and in those suburbs which have substantial industrial and commercial concentrations — St. Boniface and St. James. Of the essentially dormitory suburbs, the incidence of traffic accidents is highest in those which contain long stretches of heavily travelled highway — such as the Pembina Highway in Fort Garry, and St. Mary's and St. Anne's Roads in St. Vital.
The Winnipeg Police Department operates a training academy in which all recruits to the force for a period of twelve weeks. Training is on a half-day basis, — the other half of the working day being spent on duty. Suburban policemen are accepted as trainees (at no charge) and a considerable number of suburban policemen have been trained in the academy. Some suburban police officers have had previous training and experience with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; some have previously served on the Winnipeg Police Force; a number have had no police training whatsoever.
Appropriate personnel of the Winnipeg Police Department are detailed, from time to time, to attend specialized courses in crime detection given in major American or Canadian centres by leading crime prevention authorities. Suburban police officers rarely attend such courses.
The Winnipeg force includes 50 men trained and serving as detectives; only St. Boniface and St. James, with two detectives each, have men who specialize in detective work. The Winnipeg force includes men trained ii police photography and finger-printing. St. Boniface and St. James have men similarly trained, but of course their personnel have much less opportunity to employ their training and develop their technical proficiency. The other suburban police forces have neither the trained men nor the facilities to do this type of work. (1) When necessary, they obtain (free) the services of police photographers of finger-printing experts from either the Winnipeg Police Department or the Winnipeg Division of the R.C.M.P.
In two suburban municipalities policemen have been trained in fire fighting as well as in normal police functions. In East Kildonan, personnel are trained as both policemen and firemen, and serve in dual capacity. In Fort Garry, policemen have been trained to assist firemen, and lend a hand to the local fire department when the need arises.
Members of the Winnipeg police force receive higher pay than do their counterparts on suburban forces. In addition they work shorter hours than do the members of most suburban police forces. (St. James and St. Boniface police also have the same number of working hours per week — 40). See Table III, with weekly working hours, for members of the Winnipeg police force, and of the six largest suburban police forces. (As of September, 1956).
The Winnipeg Police force is much larger than any suburban force in size, considerably larger in fact that all the suburban forces added together. Its responsibilities and the problems with which it has had to deal are correspondingly larger and more diversified. These differences render necessary differences in administration and operation. As much inevitably be the case in a larger organization, discipline is more strict in the Winnipeg police force than in suburban forces. The concentration of valuable property in downtown Winnipeg, the numerous police problems which develop in the City's central, deteriorated districts, render necessary intensive patrolling by constables on foot. In the suburbs, on the other hand, as in most of Winnipeg's residential districts, practically all patroling is carried out by constables in cruiser cars.
The number and diversity of crimes committed within the City renders necessary and possible the employment of modern, scientific methods of crime investigation and detection. In the suburbs, on the other hand, the much smaller number and diversity of crimes affords less need and scope for the use of such methods. This, of course, has the consequence that when crimes are committed in the suburbs which require comprehensive, scientific investigation, suburban police forces are not able to bring to bear the same scale and diversity of resources as are possessed by the Winnipeg Police Department.
There is generally good co-operation among the various municipal police forces in the Greater Winnipeg area. The Winnipeg Police Department makes the training facilities freely available to the suburbs, is at all times prepared to provide assistance in crime cases which require its special facilities, and readily offers to help in traffic control when the heavy traffic volume developing in a suburban municipality requires additional police for this purpose. Suburban police, on the other hand, generally pass on to Winnipeg information they acquire which may be helpful in the detection of criminals sought by Winnipeg. No definite arrangements exist however, whereby all such information acquired by suburban police is centrally assembled and correlated. In emergencies, such as during the actual pursuit of criminals, the various police forces co-ordinate their efforts to guard and block all possible escape routes.
Four suburban police departments use the Winnipeg police radio system to communicate with their own cruiser cars. (St. Boniface, St. James, East Kildonan and West Kildonan). Radios in the cruiser cars of these departments are kept tuned in to the Winnipeg police Transmitter, messages intended for them are phoned in to Winnipeg by the suburban departments, for broadcast over the Winnipeg transmitter, (Winnipeg charges 20 cents per call.) The number of such calls made during 1956 averaged about three daily by each of the suburban police departments which used this method to communicate with their cars. (1)
The Fort Garry and St. Vital police departments each operate their own own radio system, having in each case their own transmitter, and being able therefore to communicate directly with their own cruiser cars. This set up makes possible speedier and more frequent contact between police headquarters and cruiser cars, and as well, ensures that minor matters which are of concern to only one small locality do not take up time on a radio network which covers the entire metropolitan area. On the other hand, of course, the purchase and maintenance of additional transmitters are necessary; furthermore, in emergencies when close co-ordination is required on the part of all patrolling cars, it may be difficult to achieve the requisite prompt inter-communication.
As of September 1956, eight municipalities in the Greater Winnipeg area had professionally staffed fire departments, five had volunteer fire brigades, and three had no organized fire fighting force of any kind. The size of the professionally staffed departments ranged from the five man force of Fort Garry to the 536 man force of the City of Winnipeg. Table 1 indicates what fire fighting forces were maintained in each municipality in 1956, and the per capita cost of fire protection in that year.
The disproportionately large size and cost of the Winnipeg Fire Department is primarily attributable to the greater likelihood of fires within the City, and the far greater loss which could be inflicted by fires within the City. Inside Winnipeg are located the great majority of the metropolitan area's commercial and industrial buildings. The hazard of fire is much greater in such buildings than in residential buildings such as predominate in the suburbs, and because of the high value of such buildings and their contents, fires in them are liable to cause far heavier losses than would fires in ordinary dwellings. Furthermore, Winnipeg contains a very large number of older homes in which electric wiring and heating systems are ancient and in poor condition; the incidence of fires among such houses tends to be substantially higher than among newer homes — and the majority of dwellings in the suburbs are relatively new.
Business buildings in the suburbs are also relatively new, and generally more fire resistant than are business buildings in Winnipeg, the majority of which were constructed about half a century ago. The fact that a large number of buildings now used in Winnipeg for industrial purposes, were designed and originally used as wholesale warehouses, contributes to the fire hazard in the City.
Effective fire protection requires in Winnipeg not merely more men than in the suburbs, but also more equipment. A half-century ago, a High Pressure water system was installed in the downtown area, to enable firemen to apply water to the upper storeys and roofs of tall buildings located in the central business district. Costly aerial ladders are required to reach up to the top storeys of these buildings (The St. Boniface Fire Department, better equipped than other suburban Departments, also has a tall aerial ladder, which might be required in the event of a fire at the multi-storey St. Boniface Hospital.) The possibility of chemical fires in industrial premises requires the maintenance of additional specialized facilities by the Winnipeg Fire Department.
The Winnipeg Fire Department not only possesses more and generally superior equipment, but also mans it more heavily. Whereas in most suburban municipalities two firemen with a hose wagon will be sent out in response to a fire alarm, in Winnipeg a minimum of four men with a hose wagon is sent out. Furthermore, some of the smaller suburban fire departments posses only enough equipment and men to fight one fire at any given time. Hence, when the force is actually attending a fire, the municipality is, in effect, left without fire protection. If another fire broke out somewhere else in the municipality it could be attended to without calling on Winnipeg for assistance.
Table II indicates the average per capita fire loss during the five year period 1951–55 inclusive, in the larger municipalities of Greater Winnipeg. As is evident from the table, the per capita loss from fire was substantially greater in Winnipeg and St. Boniface — the two cities with the greatest concentrations of industrial and commercial buildings and older houses — than in any of the other suburbs. Thus whereas in St. Vital, an essentially dormitory suburb with a high proportion of new houses, the annual loss per capita during the period was 88 cents, it was $4.42 in Winnipeg, and $4.15 in St. Boniface.
In the judgment of insurance under-writers, dwellings in Winnipeg and St. Boniface are better protected against the possibility of fire than are dwellings the remainder of the metropolitan area. A lower rate is charged for fire insurance in these cities than elsewhere, as is evident in column 3 and 4 in Table II. The large and well-equipped forces which are required to give protection against the hazard of fires in business premises in these cities, provide at the same time superior protection to their residential dwellings.
Winnipeg firemen receive higher pay and work fewer hours per week than do suburban firemen. See Table III. Whereas a first class fireman on the Winnipeg force received (as of September 1956) $315 per month, monthly pay of first class suburban firemen ranged from $263 in Fort Garry to $305 in East Kildonan. (In the latter municipality firemen are trained as policemen also, and serve in dual capacity.) Winnipeg's firemen worked on the average 44 hours per week, less than did the firemen in any of the suburban municipalities.
The higher pay and shorter working hours of Winnipeg firemen suggests that the City's Fire Department is able to be more selective in its recruiting. To some extent, however, the higher pay and more favorable working hours contribute necessary compensation for the greater hazards in which City firemen are liable. Because they may be called upon to battle fires in industrial premises and in large commercial buildings, Winnipeg firemen are exposed to considerably more personal hazard than are suburban firemen who are liable, generally, only to fight minor blazes in relatively small residential properties.
The suburban fire fighting forces, small in size and possessed of limited equipment, are adequate to deal with the minor blazes which constitute the chief fire hazard in residential communities. They are not equipped, however, to handle any really large fire, which might cause a great deal of damage in itself, and which might conceivably bring on a general conflagration which would engulf a large segment of the metropolitan area. There have been, in fact, large fires in the suburbs in past years which were beyond the capacities of local fire departments.
In the light of this danger, suburban municipalities have sought, and received, assurances from the Winnipeg City Council, that in time of emergency, they could ask for help from the Winnipeg Fire Department. In 1957, Winnipeg had written agreements with five of the suburban municipalities whereby Winnipeg fire fighting personnel and equipment would be sent to fight fires in these municipalities, provided the Chief of the Winnipeg Fire Department was satisfied that they could safely be spared at the time. (1) (The Winnipeg Department has sent help to municipalities with which no such agreement had been made.) The suburban municipality to which assistance is given is charged according to the equipment sent out, and the time it is away from the Winnipeg station. It is also financially responsible for any injuries or damage suffered by men or equipment while away from their station in the course of rendering assistance.
In addition to providing support in emergencies to suburban fire departments, the Winnipeg Fire Department has undertaken, by agreement, to protect the buildings of the University of Manitoba in Fort Garry, the Manitoba Sugar Beet plant, also in Fort Garry, the Deer Lodge Veterans' Hospital in St. James, and the buildings of the Mental Hospital in Selkirk. The Department is also responsible for the protection of City owned property which is located in suburban municipalities, including the buildings of the Windsor Golf Course in St. Vital, and of the Kildonan Golf Course in West Kildonan.
Some co-operation is practised among suburban municipalities in regard to fire protection, e.g. A considerable residential district in St. Boniface is closer to the St. Vital Fire Hall than to either of the St. Boniface Halls. Residents of this area sometimes call the St. Vital Fire Department, and it responds to their calls. Suburban municipalities which maintain no fire fighting services of their own, may have arrangements for getting aid from neighboring suburban municipalities which do have fire fighting forces. Thus Assiniboia calls upon the St. James Fire Department when necessary, while Old Kildonan calls upon the West Kildonan Fire Department. The responding Department charges on an hourly basis for the service rendered.