Defund the Police, Wellness Check Alternatives, Community Health Investment

As a young woman, assault and abuse survivor, black person, and child of immigrants who grew up in South Keys, and family member to people with mental illness, I live in daily fear of that neither I nor a family member nor friends will survive police interactions. These fears are based in Ontario statistics for police violence during wellness checks and interactions with people of color, especially those in socioeconomically deprive overpoliced neighborhoods.

Ottawa should not follow Toronto's lead. We already know statistically that neither more police training nor body cameras actually address the overpolicing of people with me talk illness, nor BIPOC. Police reforms and increased police budgets are not the answer Councillors that demand this are primarily interested in safeguarding their reelection at the expense of the lives and safety of their most vulnerable constituents.

Policing is the epitome of mission creep. We need this mission creep scaled back. Services police provide need to be independently examined to reallocate those services to trained professionals already experts in those fields such as psychologists, educators, social workers, healthcare providers, etc. We need actual investment in the health of overpoliced communities instead of increased policing. Policing isn't preventative. Community centers, libraries, equal education opportunities, psychological services, counselling, homeless sheltering, drug addiction counselling and support, employment - these are preventative.

The extent to which our vulnerable communities, of which I am a member, are overpoliced indicates that Ottawa and City Council do not care about us. They don't want us out of the way, dead, overincarcerated, or afraid, so that more fortunate and much lighter Ottawans can prosper in the security of our marginalization. This is not governance. This is systematic discrimination.