{"id":789584,"date":"2026-07-09T02:41:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T02:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/789584\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T02:41:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T02:41:20","slug":"frustration-not-fear-as-exchange-swells-after-drug-crackdown-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/789584\/","title":{"rendered":"Frustration, not fear, as Exchange swells after drug crackdown \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Natassia Brazeau says she doesn\u2019t feel unsafe living and working in Winnipeg\u2019s Exchange District \u2014 instead, she feels heartbreak.<\/p>\n

She said that feeling intensified last week during the Winnipeg Police Service\u2019s controversial 10-day crackdown on open drug use and drug trafficking which pushed people away from the Main Street strip.<\/p>\n

Brazeau, who owns a business in the area, said she has never seen so many people head to the Exchange District at once.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m absolutely enraged at the police response last week,\u201d Brazeau said. \u201cNot only was that incredibly short-sighted and doesn\u2019t do anything, it doesn\u2019t assist anyone that are already in incredibly vulnerable situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, she said there were two overdoses near her shop, including one outside her storefront, where she administered naloxone to revive a woman in distress.<\/p>\n

She said the police response lacked compassion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m absolutely enraged at the police response last week. Not only was that incredibly short-sighted and doesn\u2019t do anything, it doesn\u2019t assist anyone that are already in incredibly vulnerable situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not an unsafe situation,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re not seeing violence. We\u2019re not seeing some of the negative effects of this drug crisis. That\u2019s not my experience and that\u2019s definitely something I\u2019m not interested in contributing to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Front-line outreach organizations have voiced similar concerns, warning the operation would just push the drug users into less visible spaces.<\/p>\n

Another business owner in the Exchange, who asked not to be identified, said the public has lost sight of the human cost of the crisis.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, he said, a woman was standing in the middle of the street in the \u201cfentanyl fold,\u201d in which drug users appear to be slumped over and frozen in place. Traffic continued to speed past the woman, he said, and some motorists slowed only long enough to roll down their windows and yell at the woman.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s rarely had confrontations with drug users and said about 95 per cent of the time, a conversation is enough to de-escalate the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately some people don\u2019t like to look at it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut tough s\u2014-. This is the reality right now. Whether you like it or not, nobody asks for it, but this is where we are. It\u2019s do or die for some of these people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have an obligation to help the people in this city. And getting angry and calling the police, calling people to try and push them further into hiding, that\u2019s how we lose lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have an obligation to help the people in this city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Paille has adopted a similar philosophy in the West End. The co-owner of Cobra Collectibles on Sargent Avenue said he has watched former customers \u2014 children he once knew \u2014 succumb to addiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to see that,\u201d he said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Paille said he routinely asks groups who have gathered outside businesses to move along, with no confrontation. He has also administered naloxone to roughly 40 people, including a 12-year-old.<\/p>\n

He carries injectable naloxone, nasal Narcan, water, medical supplies and a list of resources for people seeking shelter, food or addictions services.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we need more people out there doing this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The work has come at a cost. Paille, who wears a camera for his own safety, said he has been assaulted twice while helping people, including once when he was struck on the back of the neck with a two-by-four, causing a minor concussion.<\/p>\n

Outreach workers say they feared the scenarios outlined by business owners.<\/p>\n

During a meeting with Winnipeg police Chief Gene Bowers and senior officials, agencies described the harms they witnessed as people were displaced during the crackdown.<\/p>\n

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MIKE DEAL \/ FREE PRESS FILES<\/p>\n

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Winnipeg Police Service Chief Gene Bowers<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The agencies told police a woman had died from an apparent drug poisoning after being found in the bushes near the West Central Women\u2019s Resource Centre \u2014 an unmonitored location.<\/p>\n

Lorie English, executive director of the centre, said staff found another person near the same bushes a couple of days later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that people are looking for places out of sight,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On Monday, staff received a threat from someone who said they planned to burn down the building because the organization distributes harm-reduction supplies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we do things like this, what we do is embolden the general public, who doesn\u2019t understand harm reduction, who doesn\u2019t understand what good, evidence-based, public health responses look like to a toxic drug crisis,\u201d she said. \u201cIt emboldens them to further bring violence and harm to our unsheltered relatives, particularly people who use drugs, but also to lash out at agencies like ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

The outreach agencies said the police chief told them that after learning of the death, officers would only focus on serious offences, such as assaults, during the final two days of the operation. The agencies also said he agreed to redirect the remaining sweeps away from the Main Street corridor, where many outreach organizations are based.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n

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For a time, they believed police were prepared to change course. Instead, they said, the campaign continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how to make this any clearer, but it\u2019s mind-boggling to me how they don\u2019t see the harm that was caused,\u201d English said.<\/p>\n

When announcing the operation two days after it began, Bowers acknowledged he should have informed front-line agencies beforehand.<\/p>\n

On the final day, outreach organizations released a joint statement saying the campaign had taken a heavy toll on the homeless and workers trying to keep them safe.<\/p>\n

Agency representatives have said a follow-up meeting with the police chief is planned.<\/p>\n

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Scott<\/p>\n

Scott Billeck
Reporter
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Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade\u2019s worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024.\u00a0 Read more about Scott<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Every piece of reporting Scott produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Natassia Brazeau says she doesn\u2019t feel unsafe living and working in Winnipeg\u2019s Exchange District \u2014 instead, she feels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-789584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}