Defund the police in favour of social programs
Hello,
The police in our communities across North America prove time and time again that they are unprepared and unwilling to protect or serve our communities. In the cases of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Jason Collins, D’Andre Campbell, Olando Brown, Andrew Loku, Jermaine Carby, Kwasi Skene-Peters, Marc Ekamba-Boekwa, Sammy Yatim, Ian Pryce, Alain Magloire, Nicholas Thorne-Belance, Phuong Na (Tony) Du, René Gallant, Abdurahman Ibrahim Hassan, Bony Jean-Pierre, Abdirahman Abdi, Pierre Coriolan, Brydon Whitstone, Josephine Pelletier, Nicholas Gibbs, Jaskamal Singh Lail, Chad Williams, Greg Ritchie, Machuar Madut, Sean Thompson, Randy Cochrane, Eishia Husdon, Jorge Giraldo, and so many more people, interaction with the police leads to death. In many other cases, such as wellness checks, sexual assault cases, domestic violence, etc., police involvement causes more harm than good for victims. The police are not properly trained and are overly armed to handle many of the situations to which they are called.
In the face of cyclical police violence happening throughout North America right now, there is no better time to commit ourselves to change. We have seen that investing in body cameras, civilian reviews or de-escalation and implicit bias training doesn’t work. What we need is leadership that can initiate a reduction in the immense police violence that targets our most marginalized people, toward the eventual abolition of police and prisons.
The Ottawa Police Services budget of $358 million from the total $3.76 billion 2020 operational budget for the City of Ottawa (an increase of $12.7 million or 3% since 2019) does not make sense and is not in the interest of our communities. This astronomical police budget costs the taxpayer more than transportation, libraries and public health combined.
I am not comfortable continuing to fund racist, bias, untrained, and harmful policing in my community at the expense of essential services like housing, firefighting, transit, libraries, education, wellness programs, and community health centres.
I am asking that the City of Ottawa representatives and elected officials pledge to do the following:
1. To never again vote to increase the police services budget;
2. To propose and implement a cut to the police services budget to support more community-based programs.
3. To prioritize the expansion of community-led health and safety initiatives over future financial investments into policing.
I call on representatives and the City Council to reduce funding in these ways:
• In excessive force cases, withhold pensions and do not rehire cops involved
• Require cops to be liable for misconduct settlements
• Reduce the size of the police force and stop sending armed/uniformed cops on mental health and poverty-related calls
An increased police presence, which includes transit inspectors and enforcement officers, does not keep us safe. Rather, it directly threatens the lives of our most vulnerable communities (BIPOC, the LGBTQ2S+ community, unhoused people, street-based sex workers, people with disabilities, people experiencing poverty, etc). Instead of investing in policing, our city must prioritize alternatives like education, increased mental health services, housing initiatives, income security, harm reduction services, accessible rehabilitation, mutual aid, community workers, conflict resolution services, transformative justice, and other vital community-based support systems. These initiatives must support our most vulnerable communities and centre the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour in our city.
Our city can lead the way in defining public safety through community, not cops, where Black, Indigenous and people of colour are free from police oppression. We have a chance to create a better future for all residents in our city by divesting from harmful policing and investing in life-affirming services.
Injustice has been going on far too long. Although this should have been solved a long time ago, the time for change is now.