Mayoral candidate wants plainclothes cops aboard buses

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This article was published 02/08/2022 (876 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A mayoral candidate and former bus driver says he’ll work to get plainclothes police officers on select Winnipeg Transit routes to combat crime.

“We have a perception issue, we have an issue with ridership, we have an issue with feeling safe, we have an issue with safety for drivers… I don’t want to see my fellow driver get stabbed or get shot or get killed,” Don Woodstock said outside of the Osborne Street Winnipeg Transit garage Wednesday morning.

Woodstock, who was a bus driver for nine years and now owns a security business, said he’d take 10 transit supervisor positions and turn them into additional driver positions, freeing up money to pay for approximately a dozen early career police officers who would be placed on buses that regularly see criminal activity. These officers would not be in uniform, so bus riders know an officer being on board is a possibility, which he said would “motivate people to behave themselves.”

“Right now, transit has increased the number of white shirts (supervisors) over the last four years. If they used some of that increase for some plainclothes officers, some of these people would be apprehended, and some of them would know that they can’t behave the way they do,” he said.

The situation wouldn’t be permanent if incidents on buses decreased over time, he said, and additional funding could come from the $509 million transit master plan, despite that funding being dedicated to modernizing the city’s bus system.

ATU Local 1505 president Romeo Ignacio said he has his doubts about the feasibility of switching out transit supervisors for bus drivers, noting that, unlike drivers, supervisors are not ATU members and the union doesn’t bargain for them.

The Transit Advisory Committee wants a “security force” on transit buses, Ignacio said, but it would be more than 13 people and would not be comprised of police officers. Rather, they would be trained and work solely within public transit, with powers similar to police cadets.

The idea came in the midst of calls to defund the Winnipeg Police Service in the city, Ignacio said, and the ATU decided it wouldn’t call for more funding for police to serve as bus security.

“I’m not saying that they can’t be part of the solution, it’s just that sometimes we do feel that they have different priorities, and maybe we’re just not seeing the whole picture,” he said.

That security force would be clearly identifiable, and while Woodstock’s ideas are well-intentioned, Ignacio said, plainclothes officers would likely be “more reactionary, rather than being proactive and acting as a deterrent.”

Woodstock will be meeting with ATU later this week to discuss transit priorities. The union has yet to throw its support behind a candidate, but Ignacio said discussions are underway and are growing more urgent as violent incidents on buses continue.

Woodstock is among 13 candidates registered in the 2022 mayoral race.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press.

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