New drug strategy in Manitoulin Island community sees big results

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A new drug strategy for a community on Manitoulin Island is starting to see positive results, with big seizures of fentanyl and cocaine as well as the arrest of numerous suspected dealers.

Because drug activity has been a big concern, Wikwemikong Tribal Police Service launched its comprehensive community drug strategy last December.

“We did the gap analysis, conducted studies, community consultation on what was really required to mitigate a lot of things that were happening on the Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory and in Manitoulin Island,” Ron Gignac, police chief in Wiikwemkoong First Nation, said in a video interview earlier this week.

Gignac said his agency is working in partnership with nearby police services on the community drug strategy efforts. This includes Ontario Provincial Police, United Chiefs and Council of Manitoulin Anishnaabe Police Service (UCCM) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

“We have a really good, combined forces collaborative effort on evidence-based policing and intelligence-led policing,” he said.

“Crime Stoppers has been pivotal in what we are trying to do with our drug strategy. Our community … collaboration, that all has a lot to do with our success.”

Ways of transporting drugs identified

Most of the focus is on motor vehicle traffic, since that’s how most of the drugs come into the community and on the island. The upcoming addition of automated license plate readers will help identify criminal activities even faster.

But it’s not just motor vehicle traffic -- police are also intercepting drugs with snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and boats.

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“We have evidence of drug drop-off locations with … marine activities, with ATVs coming off of the territory and going to pick up drugs in a pre-stashed location,” Gignac said.

“So we’re aware of these things … we have intelligence.”

Using combined forces with OPP and RCMP, marine patrols have been stepped up to improve border integrity and to provide a deterrent.

“We know that it’s a short distance from Point Grandin, Killarney, Birch Island,” he said.

Community effort

With the new strategy in place, Wikwemikong police have seized $346,000 in illicit drugs in just a few months.

And the police chief said more people are sharing and reporting information.

“The whole theme comes back to ‘see something, say something,’” Gignac said.

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“And I believe that people are comfortable in seeing the result of what’s been happening with the Wikwemikong Tribal Police Service and the strategies that we have initiated.”

New, online crime reporting

To make non-emergency reporting easier and more accessible, he said the agency is launching its first online reporting system next week.

“We call it ‘Connect, Report and Protect,’” Gignac said about the online portal that will be available 24/7.

“Sometimes people feel more comfortable reporting things online, so we wanted to make sure that we weren’t missing that data from online reporting or that information that we could receive to help us out furthering our investigations.”

The information reported online will be reviewed by WTPS staff and assigned to an officer for follow-up.

“I think it’s going to capture the data we might be missing in certain cases because we all know that the younger generations tend to do things more online,” the police chief said.“So I think we’ll be able to build that capacity into the final phase of what we’re trying to accomplish here, which is information sharing.”