In a survey released Thursday by a coalition of Winnipeg inner-city agencies half of the city's mayoral candidates and 35 per cent of candidates for council indicated support for the idea of looking into a civilian police commission.

Winnipeg is the only major city in Canada without some kind of commission to oversee its police service, according to the Inner-City Safety Coalition.

It sent surveys to all 52 candidates for mayor and city council in the Oct. 25 civic election. The survey asked them if they would support having an intergovernmental committee to look at the idea of a civilian commission and produce a report by next spring.

"You know, we've tried to make the issue of a police commission as something that we deal with in this election," coalition spokesman Tom Simms said Thursday.

"It's always hard to do something like that, but I think we've tried to put it on the agenda that way."

Of the 48 candidates for council, 17 fully supported the idea, while two responded "no" and seven offered conditional support. The remaining 22 candidates, including three incumbent councillors, did not respond to the survey.

Among the city's four mayoral candidates, Kaj Hasselriis and Marianne Cerilli supported the idea, while Ron Pollock and incumbent mayor Sam Katz did not.

In his response, Katz pointed out that he has already asked the city to conduct its own study on the concept. But Simms said the survey's purpose is to speed up that process.

"You know, this issue first came up in February 2003. Nothing happened with the issue until the community came forward on May of 2006," Simms said.

"So we really hope that the time is now, and there's some commitments to some timelines to implement the idea of a commission this time around."

In June, the city's protection and community committee passed a motion recommending the idea of a civilian police commission be moved forward to the executive policy committee. Katz maintained that the city needs to do more homework on the idea.

Complaints about police officers in Winnipeg and on other municipal forces are currently handled by the Law Enforcement Review Agency (LERA), a provincially mandated, independent body.

However, some groups have complained the LERA system takes too long and is difficult to navigate.