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Defund the OPS. Invest in communities and social services.

The Ottawa Police Services budget for 2020 is $358 million—nearly 10% of the city’s entire $3.76 billion budget. This is a staggeringly high amount, particularly given that such a large chunk of it goes to inflated police officer salaries. The OPS costs Ottawa taxpayers more than transportation, libraries, and public health combined. We must immediately start divesting from the systemically violent OPS (see for example Greg Ritchie in 2019, Abdiraman Abdi in 2016, Vincent Gardner in 1991, and Charles Cooper 1997), and invest in community-based initiatives instead. The police do not keep communities safe. Instead, they threaten the lives of Ottawa's most marginalized communities (BIPOC, the LGBTQ2S+ community, unhoused people, street-based sex workers, persons with disabilities, persons experiencing poverty, etc.). Now is not the time for reform--it has been tried, and it has failed. Reform cannot fix a system that is built/depends on White supremacy and is inherently violent.

There exists good evidence that investing in body cameras, civilian reviews, or de-escalation and implicit bias training doesn't work. What we need in Ottawa is a reduction in the immense police violence that targets our most marginalized citizens, and a move toward the eventual abolition of police and prisons. Funding for the expansion of community-led health and safety initiatives must instead be prioritized. The City of Ottawa can begin to reduce the size of the police budget in the following ways:

  • Withhold pensions and never rehire officers involved in excessive force cases
  • Require officers to be liable for misconduct settlements
  • Reduce the size of police force

A safe Ottawa is an Ottawa with widespread community-based support systems and anti-violence initiatives, safe and affordable housing for all, access to transformative justice, mutual aid, greater access to physical and mental health services, more accessible public transit, an increased focus on harm reduction strategies, the hiring of professionals trained in unarmed conflict resolution, greater funding for education, and so on. And these initiatives must support our most marginalized communities and centre the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour in Ottawa.

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