Defund police

The defund police approach is an incredibly sensible proposal with enormous advantages.

Let's start (but not stop) with mental health crises and wellness checks. These are health services and must be treated as such. Perhaps the paramedics could be leveraged to include mental health crisis response teams - they already have the infrastructure in place, and necessary expansions could be via budget cuts to the police and increasing funding to paramedics.

Take cops out of schools, and transfer those funds to after-school programs and extra supports for high risk students.

There are plenty of current "policing" duties that could be done more effectively by civilians. For example, at construction sites - do we really need six-figure police officers directing traffic around a burst water pipe? Photo radar could replace much of traffic policing - and prevent racially motivated, uncalled for, traffic stops. Parking bylaw officers could be leveraged to check for expired license plates.

The options are endless, and the upsides are huge.

The time is now.