Edmonton’s police chief issues warning on funding
EPS cuts may mean losing officers from ‘underrepresented’ groups
EDMONTON The city’s Police Chief Dale Mcfee says the movement to defund police risks reversing the service’s strides toward becoming a more diverse organization.
Mcfee’s comments, made in a video conference with reporters Thursday, come one day after he addressed city council on calls to divert funding from the police service toward social service agencies — part of a worldwide conversation on policing reform following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
“We need to bring calm,” he said, referring to police and media, “and (we need) our decisions to be made from a principle that we have to make change, but it’s not just the policing system.”
“We’ve also got to make sure that we’re not letting those that are really, really angry try to run an agenda or change things, because if we go with what the proposals (for defunding) were ... we undo everything we’ve done.”
Mcfee was on the defensive for most of Wednesday’s council meeting, which resulted in a motion to consider freezing the $372.5 million police budget at 2020 levels. That could result in $16.3 million going toward community programs related to addiction, mental health and homelessness.
Policing makes up about 15 per cent of the City of Edmonton’s $3-billion operating budget, making it one of the city’s largest line items.
Black Lives Matter Edmonton proposes freezing the police budget and rolling back increases in place for 2019-2022.
Mcfee repeated warnings Thursday that cuts to the EPS operating budget — more than 80 per cent of which goes toward salaries — would mean laying off younger officers who tend to be more diverse and attuned to modern policing ideas.
“We’ve hired diversity in an extremely aggressive manner,” he said. “When you hire in a collective agreement ... if you reduce your numbers, it’s last in, first out.”
Statistics provided by EPS show the service’s hiring of “underrepresented” groups — including women, Indigenous people, visible minorities and LGBTQ people — has improved in the last five years.
The EPS’S 2019 recruit class was made up of 57.1 under-represented groups, compared to 41.9 per cent in 2015.
Mcfee’s comments Thursday were similar in tone to his council address, in which he agreed policing needed to undergo changes while stressing the health care and social services sectors also have a role to play.
He openly expressed frustration Wednesday, saying an officer recently remarked to him that things had gone from a “movement for change, to people just hating us” over something that happened “thousands of miles away.”
Mcfee said feedback on his statements — including from officers, community non-profits and principals involved in the controversial school resource officer program — has been “100 per cent” positive.
Alex Eskandarkhah, a member of the group Fight for Equity, which organized last Friday’s protest at the legislature, disputed Mcfee’s characterization of those pushing for change.
“The narrative that it’s angry people that want these changes, no, it’s not angry people: there’s educated people, there’s people in the community that want to see change, and there’s people in the community that want to see representation when these changes are being considered,” he said.
Ward 1 Coun. Andrew Knack, who put forward Wednesday’s motion, said he believes Mcfee understands the need for police reform. Mcfee noted Wednesday that about 30 per cent of the EPS’S workload is dealing with mental health, addictions and other social issues.
“I think ultimately we want these new officers, who do reflect greater diversity ... to be able to go and do the job they originally signed up for, which is to prevent crime, to stop crime, and not to be dealing with social work,” said Knack.
The city plans to hold public hearings on the policing budget beginning Monday.