Council for the Rural Municipality of Hanover has identified its police priorities for 2020.

Reeve Stan Toews explains each year, both Steinbach RCMP and St. Pierre RCMP request a list of Hanover’s top four priorities for police. For 2020, Hanover’s list includes:

  1. Communication – visibility of police
  2. Crime Reduction – property crimes such as break-and-enters and vandalism
  3. Crime Reduction – traffic control
  4. Crime Reduction – organized crime

Toews says their top four priorities for 2020 were all also on their top four list for 2019, only in a different order. According to Toews, “organized crime” had been number one on Hanover’s list in 2019. As you can see, this year it dropped to fourth on that list. He explains why “visibility of police” is now their top priority.

“Because we feel that we need more visibility in the communities itself,” says Toews. “And so, if you have lots of visibility, some of those other stuff goes away by itself too.”

Toews says council feels that sometimes there is not enough police visibility in the municipality. Toews says he recognizes that RCMP detachments do not have an endless number of officers, yet he says council would like to see more visibility, especially on gravel roads.

“Sometimes the driving (there), is not quite up to par,” explains the Reeve. “Other than that, (police officers) are doing a good job, so we have no complaints about them.”