Nick Grover
Most of us assume there is a social contract between cities and police. We pay them a lot of money and they keep us safe. For three weeks, residents of downtown Ottawa got to see first-hand the folly of that assumption.
As a right-wing convoy occupied the city centre‒noise at all hours, residents harassed, service workers put at risk by anti-vaxxers refusing to wear masks‒it was clear the police did not have our backs. It was up to residents to take care of each other, which they did with neighbourhood walks, mutual aid, legal initiatives, counterprotests and blockading trucks to keep them from entering the downtown.
The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) excuse for inaction has been some variation of “we need more money.” But the police budget is already a whopping $344 million. That’s about 10 percent of our total municipal budget and one of the only departments that can count on reliable year-to-year funding increases (it got a $12 million top-up this year).
If that much money isn’t enough to ensure basic safety measures, then maybe policing is not the right approach. What might we do instead?
On the logistical side, we can redesign streets to deny vehicles such easy access to the city centre. Converting Wellington Street into a tramway and remaking surrounding streets into car-free areas with wider sidewalks, segregated bike lanes, dedicated bus lanes, or where appropriate full pedestrian zones, would achieve this while making our neighbourhoods quieter, less polluted, more accessible and nicer to live in. Many cities in Europe already do this with great effect.
We also need to get serious about tackling the root causes of the far right’s rise and ability to garner so much support. Pandemic measures may not have galvanized so many to join dangerous far-right campaigns, if the hardships of the pandemic had been addressed by upper levels of government.
Despite the ridiculous reasons cited, mistrust in government comes from believing it doesn’t have our interests at heart. Paid sick days, free mental health care and pharmacare, affordable housing, living wages, stable jobs and accessible services have been missing too long and were sorely needed during COVID-19. We can begin to champion these priorities in our own city‒to foster safety and belonging rather than isolation and resentment‒by reallocating money and responsibilities away from the police to public services.
The fact is, even at its best, police work largely involves managing social issues politicians don’t want to deal with: homelessness, addiction, mental illness and poverty. Through a cycle of confrontation, arrest and incarceration, cops move people in need out of view while deeper policy failures go unchanged.
This tends to make us less safe as many recent OPS scandals illustrate. These include the death of Anthony Aust during one of OPS’s many “no knock raids” into people’s homes; drawing weapons on a group of unarmed black youth; failing to read those in custody their rights; and arresting 12 black and Indigenous activists for blocking a single intersection while protesting the police budget.
Edmonton City Council seems to be coming to grips with this. That’s why they voted to decrease their 2022 police budget by $11 million with the intent to direct money toward community services and homelessness programs. A smaller decrease was made last year as well. As one councillor put it, “We’re paying way too much for the wrong services, at the wrong time, at the wrong place” and “we cannot just keep writing a blank cheque.”
Cities cannot run deficits and must either raise taxes or reallocate existing funds. We wouldn’t need as many cops in the first place if we addressed the gaps in our social safety net to create a truly safe, healthy and livable city.
Affordable housing and supportive housing first programs like Options Bytown would provide stability to those actively, or at risk of becoming, homeless. Free counseling, treatment services and a mental health response team separate from the OPS (as Toronto is doing) would mean greatly reduced interactions between police and people experiencing mental health issues. Improving and expanding public transit would reduce car traffic and accidents and the need for police to manage either.
True freedom means a society with the social and community scaffolding to meet people’s needs: to keep them safe, nurtured and enable them to thrive.
It is vital Ottawa doesn’t take the shortsighted approach by shovelling more into police funding in the name of peace and security; it will undermine our ability to truly achieve it.
Nick Grover lives in Sandy Hill, has a Master’s degree in history, and works for a national NGO.