Council rejects motion to ask for 10% cut to police budget
Critics ‘frustrated’ as councillors instead endorse mayor’s plan, which calls for body-worn cameras and no immediate defunding
City council on Monday rejected a move to ask the Toronto police to cut its budget in 2021by at least10 per cent, following weeks of protests calling on them to defund the police.
Instead, council voted in favour of a series of motions backed by Mayor John Tory, which propose reforms that don’t include immediate defunding of the police.
These reforms include developing alternative ways for police to respond to calls that don’t involve weapons, a call for the police services board to provide council with a line-by-line breakdown of the budget and ask that council “commit to eradicating racial profiling in policing.”
One of Tory’s motions approved by council will actually see the police budget increase by $5 million in 2021 — if the request for body-worn cameras for all officers is fully implemented.
The motion to ask the police to have all officers outfitted with cameras by next year passed 17 to 7.
“I’m very frustrated, but beyond that I am so incredibly embarrassed that this is our city council,” Sandy Hudson, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto told the Star following the vote. Hudson’s group had asked for at least 50 per cent to be cut from the budget.
She said it was “disrespectful” that councillors ignored studies that bodyworn cameras make interactions worse, that they commended the police amid protests and that they promised to do things they’ve promised before.
“The level of discourse is just so shallow,” said Hudson.
Ahead of the vote, Coun. Josh Matlow urged his colleagues to support his motion to ask the police to cut at least 10 per cent from its budget next year.
“What I’m asking you to do is show courage,” he said.
Matlow said evidence demonstrates that investing in communities “by helping our kids avoid picking up a gun in the first place rather than funding ways to arrest them and incarcerate them afterwards” are better at making those communities safer. “It protects people. It serves them better.” His motion failed 8 to 16. Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam, who worked with Matlow on the motion, noted the documented, increased likelihood of being shot or killed by police as a person of colour or with a mental illness.
She said a system of anti-Black and other racism needs to be addressed and that calls to defund the police have been misunderstood.
“The defund movement is really about asking all of us to re-imagine what public safety looks like,” she said.
Transformational change has not come despite a task force to reform the police under Tory’s administration, said Coun. Joe Cressy, who also supported Matlow’s motion. Cressy said he was concerned the mayor’s motion contains “no clear targets” for the re-allocation of funds.
Coun. Gord Perks challenged the criticism that Matlow’s request was arbitrary.
“Every budget this mayor has brought forward started out with an arbitrary number — we will only increase property taxes at the rate of inflation, all of the services have to be adjusted to match that number,” said Perks. “And the reason given is that if we allowed any other number it would become unaffordable for homeowners who pay property taxes.
“So we’re prepared to use an arbitrary number to protect homeowners from property taxes, but we’re not prepared to do it when the issue is antiBlack racism, anti-Indigenous racism and the effects of policing on racialized Torontonians.”
Ahead of the vote, Tory said his proposals were meant to be a “comprehensive” series of reforms that if approved would “set in motion a process that should bring about the kind of change at the pace of change that is needed in response to the people who have marched in the street and have been in touch with us in our offices and so on.”
Tory characterized his recommendations as a more careful and thoughtful way of eventually reducing the police budget and achieving “fair change.”
The mayor’s allies largely backed him on his proposals and rejected Matlow’s requests.
“I don’t believe that this ar
“It continues to sound like we are doing the same over and over again without making any difference.”
ASEEFA SARANG EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACROSS BOUNDARIES
bitrary cut to the police services board will get us to where we need to go,” his budget chief Coun. Gary Crawford said Monday.
Crawford repeated a suggestion made by the mayor’s allies that a 10-per-cent cut would inevitably lead to more than1,000 service members being laid off — despite layoffs not being the only way to cut costs.
Another executive member, Coun. James Pasternak, called the mayor’s plan “a roadmap for getting stuff done.”
“This is a responsible, clear response of reforming police, keeping our community safety and not taking an X-Acto knife to our police budget and putting all our communities at risk.”
Toronto Police Services Board chair Jim Hart said the mayor’s proposals would be “very helpful in terms of moving the organization forward.”
Outgoing police chief Mark Saunders was less specific, but said he supported the discussion of meaningful reforms that were not “punitive,” while acknowledging the issue of systemic racism in policing.
Much of what was approved Monday simply forms a “request” to the police services board, since council does not have the power to direct spending and other aspects of policing.
The virtual debate drew sustained viewership of more than 1,500 on YouTube — what may be a council record with chambers at city hall having capacity for fewer than 300 people.
Ahead of the vote, activists and academics questioned whether the mayor’s proposals would bring about real change.
Tory’s motion Monday requests the police chief adopt all the recommendations from that 2017 inquest following police shooting death of Andrew Loku. Council rejected attempts to amend one of Tory’s proposals that would have looked at a response to mental health and other crises that don’t involve the police at all.
Syrus Marcus Ware, who is part of Black Lives Matter Toronto, earlier told the Star the focus on expanding Mobile Crisis Assessment Teams, which pair a specialized trained police officer with a mental health nurse, does not achieve the aim of not having police respond to mental health calls.
Aseefa Sarang, the executive director of Across Boundaries, which provides mental heath services to racialized communities, said the recommendations coming out of the inquest into the death of Andrew Loku have only been superficially implemented.
“What we heard from the Toronto Police Services is that we do do training and we do have police officers who go through certain weeks of mental health training … it continues to sound like we are doing the same over and over again without making any difference,” Sarang said. “But we were really asking for a look at the culture of the institution as a whole.”
Sarang said there needs to be a courageous, well-funded plan to take action on the recommendations and reports cited in the motion — otherwise nothing will change.
Hudson said the vote Monday raised bigger questions about how well the city is represented at city hall when council members said they were bombarded with calls and emails from thousands of residents demanding they defund the police but voted not to.
Asked about the lack of support for even a 10-per-cent cut compared to what was being demanded by some — a 50-percent cut — Hudson said: “That shouldn’t stop us from trying to do the right thing.”