Cops on Substack: How Police Are Using PR to Combat Criticism

E arly on the morning of January 28, 2022, around twenty large vehicles came to be parked in front of the provincial legislature in Winnipeg. Dozens more would later join them for what would be a three-week-long occupation. The rows of semitrucks, tractors, and cars formed a dense and noisy cluster that stood in solidarity with a nationwide protest decrying vaccine mandates and pandemic lockdown rules—and the demonstrations seemed to stump police agencies in Winnipeg, Ottawa, and other major urban centres.

Police in Winnipeg faced competing demands from a broad range of community voices. Those in support of the convoy asserted their right to peaceful protest. Others accused officers of being soft on the protesters and demanded a harsher, faster response to the community disruption. Some questioned whether the police service’s approach would have been the same if the convoy hadn’t mostly been composed of white people. Across the country, others drew comparisons between the police’s response to the protests and their violence against members of Indigenous communities in prior incidents. The public’s trust in police, already dwindling in Manitoba for a few years, dropped across the country. Police had their backs against the wall, and their public relations teams felt the heat.