Library safety not a political issue

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/12/2022 (733 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Politics can be a forum in which ideas clash with one another and, at least in a democracy, the people choose between them. Grand visions of what we want to achieve as a society are developed, debated and implemented. This exciting clash of ideologies is what draws many of us to politics in the first place.

But sometimes, politics isn’t exciting at all; rather, it can be about mundane administrative matters such as policy implementation and service provision, or some other term that can act as an instant cure for insomnia.

Consider, for example, garbage collection: almost everyone wants their trash picked up on a regular basis. While I am not an expert, I would hazard a guess that there is probably an objectively best way to go about collecting garbage once a week.

Needless to say, this is not exactly fertile ground for spirited debate and discussion of grand visions.

Municipal politics is where we see the greatest tension between those who see politics as a clash of ideologies versus politics as a simple matter of sound administration. In a whole range of municipal policy areas — garbage, sewage, clearing snow off roads, blowing leaves off boulevards — there is little room for ideological debate and conflict.

Instead, the focus of municipal politics should be on optimizing these services to better serve the people.

In the 20th century, municipal “reformers” who agreed with that sentiment reacted to corruption and cronyism in city governments by trying to strip the politics out of local politics, and by building processes that were focused on better service delivery.

Of course, what these “reformers” built was every bit as political as what came before it. That’s because what happens in city government is, for the most part, inherently political.

Public officials make decisions informed by ideology on a regular basis. How big should local government be? How much money, in the form of taxes, should it take from residents? How much should the government do, and what should it do?

If resources are scarce (and they are), then who should government serve and who should it neglect?

These are political questions, and ideology informs how local politicians answer them. Winnipeg city councillors Jeff Browaty and Sheri Rollins, on opposite sides of the political spectrum, would likely provide quite different answers to these questions.

But that said, there are policy questions in local politics that are genuinely non-political, and which ideology and politics should not touch. The case of the Millennium Library and the safety of its users, tragically brought into public view last week when Tyree Cayer was stabbed to death in the library, is one such issue.

All sorts of Winnipeggers use and enjoy public libraries, but some vulnerable people depend on them. This includes seniors, parents with small children, low-income Winnipeggers, and recent immigrants and refugees. And city government has an obligation to keep these vulnerable people safe when they are accessing the library.

This should not be a matter on which politics or ideology should intrude.

The city also has an obligation to keep its workers safe. Media reports since the stabbing have shown safety in the library has been flagged as an ongoing issue for some time, by the facility’s employees to their union. Shamefully, those with the power to do so did not act decisively in response to their workers’ concerns.

In 2019, airport-style metal detectors were installed in the Millennium Library in response to concerns about public safety. But the scanners, as well as security guards who searched through peoples’ bags looking for weapons, came under scrutiny from activists as part of a larger movement against the securitization of public spaces and anger toward policing in general.

An activist group, Millennium for All, claimed the security measures would deter marginalized groups from visiting the library, and that administrators had failed to consult with community members and stakeholders before instituting the changes. Instead, the group argued, city government should be addressing the root causes of crime, particularly poverty, rather than investing scarce resources in new security measures.

It’s clear the security measures at the Millennium Library were caught up in a wider current of politics and ideology. As a result of this concerted pressure campaign, the scanners were removed and mandatory bag searches were put on hold.

One might be inclined to think the scanners and bag searches were a Band-Aid solution to the challenge of safety at the Millennium Library, and that more thoughtful security measures should have been put in place, as will hopefully soon happen.

One might also think, as I do, we desperately need to better address the issues underlying crime in this city.

But the stabbing at the Millennium Library tragically reminds us that the safety of library users and workers should be a fundamental consideration, and that this should never have been dragged into the realm of politics in the first place.

Royce Koop is a professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba and academic director of the Centre for Social Science Research and Policy.