Invest in the wellbeing of everyone

Ottawa spends millions more on its police services than housing, healthcare, and mental health and addiction services. Police services take up 9.5% of our operational budget whereas public health is allocated 1.9%. These statistics need to change.

Many of Ottawa's predominantly BIPOC communities are underfunded and have poor conditions. It also doesn't help that these areas are over-policed resulting in high crime rates and fear amongst these families. Instead of funding the police, create proper support and activities for youth in these areas. Question why the crime rates are so high and figure out ways to make these communities more safe without the police.

Additionally, police are not properly trained to deal with any mental health crisis. Having police respond to such situations often results in police mishandling and violence.

This money should be allocated to community building, mental health services, addiction services, improving low income housing, and community programs and activities to reduce street violence.

I'd strongly encourage the city of Ottawa to notice and question recurring patterns across the city, and to examine the roots of them. It's certainly not a coincidence that so many BIPOC live in poverty with higher crime rates. It isn't the people themselves, but the corely racist systems that make it this way.