abolish the police, invest in communities

As a white person, I am privileged in many ways, one of which is that I do not fear for my life if I choose to call the police. BIPOC, on the other hand, are policed, surveilled, and profiled at a much higher rate--their communities are targeted and harmed not only by police brutality but also the trauma of this constant surveillance, of feeling unsafe in their city. The City of Ottawa is responsible for and should uplift all of the communities that make the city so vibrant, not just its white population. Canada loves to extol the virtue of "multiculturalism" in this country yet systematically neglect and target the communities that make up this image of Canadian identity. Systematic change is necessary if we are to actualy be able to celebrate "the Canadian mosaic" rather than using it as a smokescreen. This should start with affirming the safety of BIPOC communities, and this means abolishing the OPP. This is because policing in North America is a fundamentally racist institution: modern policing was born out of slave patrols and has continued to center its work around the suppression, criminalization, and incarceration of BIPOC, and particularly Black communities. It cannot be reformed. Funds should instead be redistributed to community care networks, social housing, education, community-based mental health support, and other social programs. The criminalization of symptoms does nothing to heal the underlying problems that should be addressed. A safer Ottawa means investing in care--investing in an ongoing process of listening to communities and investing in their well-being, not in the criminalization of their existence.