Province creates new inter-agency missing-persons unit, commits $2.1M

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The Manitoba government is funding a new, co-ordinated inter-agency unit led by city police to handle missing persons cases.

On Monday, Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen said the province will spend $2.1 million to dedicate police resources to the new Manitoba Integrated Missing Persons Response.

The Winnipeg Police Service and its missing persons co-ordinators will be the centralized intake for the provincewide response unit; there are currently eight civilian co-ordinators who work during the day and evening to assess city missing persons cases.

Police Chief Danny Smyth said the service will hire another four co-ordinators who will do the same work but for missing persons cases across the province 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“Our intent is to expand that unit so they can service the entire province, so it doesn’t matter if you’re phoning from St. Vital or you’re phoning from Oxford House, you’ll be connected to the same unit, who will run through the same risk assessment and make sure the file gets to the investigative body that requires it,” said Smyth at a provincial announcement at RCMP D Division Headquarters Monday.

“The benefit of co-ordination here is that we can again determine the risk of a file when it comes in. The co-ordinators tend to get a really good feel for a file, in particular when they’re dealing with repeated reports, and they can funnel it to where it needs to get to quickly.”

Manitoba RCMP commander Assistant Commissioner Rob Hill said about 10 people are reported missing in its jurisdiction each day.

Winnipeg police investigated a total 9,315 reported missing persons incidents last year, Goertzen said.

“Each one of these (reports) is an individual, each represents a family who is worried about that individual who is missing,” he said.

The WPS will work with other police agencies, support services and community service providers to respond to missing persons cases, including people who go missing chronically.Smyth said the intention is to have the expanded unit up and running within a few months.

“Manitoba has seen high rates of missing persons over the last several years and in 2021, 63 per cent of missing children were runaway girls,” Goertzen said.  

The province said the response unit aligns with recommendations for a better-supported community-based first response and for more responsive, transparent and accountable policing contained in the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The unit’s goals are to channel youth and adults who regularly go missing into community-support programs and to ensure timely law-enforcement engagement on cases.

Dedicated child-welfare resources will also be allocated within the unit to collaborate with law enforcement and ensure there are appropriate plans and responses in place for youth in care who go missing, the province said. Smyth said the city service often sees missing person cases involving youth in child and family services care who have run away, or involving people coming to the city for medical, education or recreational reasons from remote or rural areas who don’t realize their vulnerabilities in the city.

He said that officials are exploring potentially embedding Child and Family Services workers in the unit to work alongside investigators.

Heidi Spence, who directs the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls liaison unit for Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, said that the northern First Nation political advocacy group often gets information about missing people from northern communities who end up in Winnipeg.

“It’s going to help the resources and better communication to be able to give answers to the family and loved ones of our women, girls and (LGBTTQ+) people,” she said of the new initiative.

Funds for the new unit come from a two-year, $52 million violent crime strategy that was announced in the Progressive Conservatives’ 2023 budget.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera