Police arrogant in pursuit of $8-million budget increase

Community deserves opportunity to explore solutions beyond the criminal justice system

Last month, Waterloo Region Police Service proposed its first budget since the rising of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Instead of looking at ways to reallocate a portion of the $200 million it already spends to better meet the community’s health and safety needs, the police have requested an additional $8 million for 2021.

At a time when politicians and police services in Edmonton and Calgary have been able to chop millions from their police budgets, this $8-million request is not only tone deaf, it is arrogant.

In the middle of a pandemic, when every household dollar has become so precious, the regional police want more. We hear these funding demands being justified by an increasing crime rate in our region. We are reminded of the grandmother who was shot and killed in Cambridge last year. They say “No one is safe.”

But “who” isn’t safe?

We know the five people who died of overdoses in one week at the end of October weren’t safe. Experts say the undignified and unjust deaths create more trauma within these marginalized communities, making worse the cycle of addiction.

We know a Black person walking in downtown Kitchener isn’t safe from being racially profiled by Waterloo Regional Police. After an analysis of data gathered between 2006 and 2015, The Record found Black people account for only two per cent of the region’s population, but were found to make up nine per cent of people being stopped by police without cause, in a process known as “carding.”

We know Beau Baker wasn’t safe. It has been five years since he was shot and killed by several police officers in Kitchener. So far no inquest has been held into this tragic killing of a young man in mental distress.

We know the woman who died on the weekend after police conducted a wellness check wasn’t safe. Two officers attended the woman’s home and left after speaking with her. Less than an hour later the woman called 911 again, EMS arrived and she was pronounced dead. Four agents from the Special Investigation Unit have been assigned to the case.

Our community is facing hard times. This pandemic has exacerbated the problems that were already here. In order to ensure community safety, we need to cut millions from the police budget and invest that money in ways that actually help people.

Even Chief Bryan Larkin has admitted that oftentimes police are sent out on calls that would be better handled by another service. The Black Lives Matter movement in Waterloo Region has detailed the proposed cut to the police budget. But the politicians and police are ignoring this.

In Waterloo Region we have so many courageous citizens working in the helping professions, such as those in the Community Health Van practising harm reduction. We have community members who spend their evenings making sure as many people as possible go to bed with full stomachs. We have an incredibly innovative crew of people who have created an entire village to support those experiencing homelessness. These programs and committed individuals are some of our most valuable assets.

When we talk about crime reduction and community well-being we are not talking about getting rid of the Children’s Safety Village. We are not talking about more training for officers. We are talking about real change.

But we can’t do anything without real leaders. We need leaders like Mayor Naheed Nenshi and Calgary city council who earlier this month approved reallocating $20 million from the police service’s budget into social services over the next two years. We need change like what is happening in Edmonton where $11 million of the police budget will be invested into supportive housing.

Is our community’s police budget a law-enforcement budget or a crime-reduction budget?

If we, as a community, decide that our police budget is a crime-reduction budget then reallocation is the only answer. What is going to reduce crime? Let’s at least give our community a chance to answer this question and to explore solutions that are beyond the criminal justice system. It would be a great disservice to our community to assume we cannot find the answers together.