A Winnipeg city councillor is demanding that police come up with statistics on stabbings in the city, even though police don't track those offences specifically.

Daniel McIntyre Coun. Harvey Smith says he first requested stabbing statistics last month, with the hope police would present the numbers on Thursday.

But when police officials did appear before councillors, they said they do not break down offences by the types of weapons used.

Smith said that lack of data is unacceptable, given what he described as "an epidemic in stabbings" in Winnipeg.

"The only way we can deal with it is to know the problem in detail first — where they're occurring, why they're occurring," he said.

"I want to know, for example, how many people who have been attacked … [are] co-operating with the police."

Smith said he also wants to know, for example, how many of the city's stabbings took place at house parties.

National tracking system

Supt. Devon Clunis said the tracking system that the Winnipeg Police Service uses only has numbers for the more general category of crimes involving weapons.

To break down those statistics by the type of weapon used would take hundreds of personnel hours, Clunis said.

But Smith insisted that he won't stop asking for specific stabbing numbers until he gets them.

"I will bring it up at the next meeting. I will bring it up at every meeting," he said.

"They should've been dealing with this years and years ago and have a system that records them."

The police figures that councillors saw on Thursday point to a nine per cent decrease in violent crime from 2009 to 2010 and a further eight per cent drop from 2010 to 2011.

The number of assaults with a weapon was down 10.6 per cent from 2009 to 2010 and down 8.8 per cent from 2010 to 2011, according to police.

The number of police officers has gone up from 1,348 in 2009 to 1,441 this year, an increase of 93 officers, according to the figures.

However, police note that some of the 93 new officers are still in recruit training and will receive their first assignments this fall.

Eadie wants updates on missing, slain women

Also on Thursday, Mynarski Coun. Ross Eadie said he wants to know how police are dealing with the issue of missing and murdered women.

The issue has resurfaced in recent weeks following the arrest of Shawn Lamb, 52, who has been charged with second-degree murder in the deaths of three aboriginal women who had gone missing in the city within the past year.

Eadie presented a motion asking for police to prepare a semi-annual report on the issue.

Such a report would not have to contain details on individual cases, but it should at least indicate how police investigations are progressing in those cases, he said.

Eadie said people feel little is being done on missing and murdered women cases, so police should show them what is being done.

The first report is expected on Sept. 6.