Southwestern Manitoba’s biggest city is struggling to recruit officers, so they’re offering signing bonuses, paid training and recruitment nights in order to boost applications.
The Brandon Police Service should have around 110 officers for the city of 54,000, says Insp. Jason Dupuis. But, currently, they only have 91 members — including eight who are part of a new paid six-month training program.
“Us, like a lot of other police services in Canada … are struggling to find quality applicants,” he said. “We’re looking for a lot of good men and women to come forward.”
Dupuis is a member of BPS’s first-ever recruitment team. He expects they’ll have to find at least eight to ten people a year to get the force fully staffed.
To make that happen, they are offering $12,500 signing bonuses for experienced officers, along with the new on-the-job training program.
Clayton Jacobsen, 35, says these recruitment efforts in part inspired him to look at a career in policing.
He was one of about two dozen people at a recent BPS recruitment night at Assiniboine College, trying out the policing physical exam.
“I’ve had a huge respect for them for a long time so it’s one of those things where it’s a job that needs to be done and nowadays it seems like a lot of people don’t want to do it,” he said.
Recruitment an issue across Canada
Former Brandon Police Chief Wayne Balcaen, now MLA for Brandon West, says in the 33 years on the force recruitment was an ongoing issue, reaching crisis levels in the last five.
In his eyes, one of the biggest impacts has come from calls to defund the police, which began in the United States, and Balcaen says they painted policing in a negative light.
Other factors along with mistrust are impacting recruitment: Competition with other agencies and industries, along with burnout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Balcaen says over the last several years BPS recruiters have been out trying to recruit across Canada. He thinks they need to show off what the community has to offer, along with incentives.
“Our quality of life is much better here,” Balcaen said. “Time off, the ability to be with your spouse and your family here in this neighborhood and be part of the community.”
‘A desperate situation’
Assiniboine College says graduates of its public safety program are in high demand. When they graduate, 95 per cent of them have jobs with police agencies.
Jack Ewatski, Assiniboine College’s Public Safety Institute chairperson, says they’ve trained about 50 per cent of current Brandon Police officers. The eight-month program can have a class of up to 24 students, but this year they have 15 students.
Ewatski, former Winnipeg police chief, says police services across Canada are feeling a workforce pinch. Recruiters from across the country are looking to Assiniboine College hoping the graduates will choose them.
“Police agencies right across the country are … in a desperate situation,” he said. “If they can get candidates who have a level of training and a level of experience, they gobble them up pretty quickly.”
Assiniboine College has been working with Brandon police for around 20 years to help train new recruits. Students who complete the program receive a public safety certificate, and if hired by BPS, they will complete another six months of training to become officers.
Dupuis says while the graduates coming out of Assiniboine are helping keep officers on the job, they need more. That’s why BPS started its on-the-job paid training class to boost recruitment.
Policing for community
Meanwhile, there’s been an expectation that police will do everything for everybody at any time, affecting police capacity, Ewatski said. That’s created a strong push to look at how policing works, and police are thinking about their place in the community, he said.
Shannon Saltarelli, Brandon Community Safety and Well-being Plan member, says police are running off their feet trying to keep up with calls when some of them could better be answered by other agencies.
“Right now in Brandon, police are responding in situations where they shouldn’t be, frankly, and they know that and they don’t want to be,” Saltarelli said. “But, right now they’re the service that’s open 24/7.”
She hopes new initiatives like the Community Cadet Program which launched in 2023 — offering mentorship with police through on-the-ground experience — will get boots on the ground helping the community, while letting potential officers build community relationships.
Dupuis said the downtown cadet program is helping BPS, and several have already become police officers.
BPS is still recruiting for its on-the-job training class until Nov. 30.
Jacobsen hopes he’ll be a successful candidate.
“They’re struggling to get people in,” he said. “I want to do this … they need those people that can help make a better community.”
The Brandon Police Service is struggling to recruit officers, so it’s offering $12,500 signing bonuses, paid training and recruitment nights in a bid to boost applications.