Since October 2023, the Halifax Budget Committee has met three times to discuss proposed budget increases for the Halifax Regional Police (HRP) and RCMP. The proposed 2024-2025 operating budget for Halifax Regional Police is $98,132,100, an increase of $5,787,100 (6.3 percent) over the 2023-2024 HRP budget.
This increase will fund more patrol officers, instructors for training more police through the alarmingly short 38-week “Police Science” program, and even more officers to occupy schools, to “respond” to mental health crisis calls and to investigate hate crimes.
Never mind that the swelling of the police numbers will allow for ever-closer surveillance of poor and racialized communities in HRM, in the name of “public safety.” Never mind that a police presence does not make students or teachers (or any vulnerable person) any safer. Never mind that countless murders by police make it utterly unbelievable that police could fill the need for professionally trained healthcare workers to support people experiencing health crises, especially when those people are Black or Indigenous.
Choosing care over cops
At all three public-consultation meetings, the consensus of the community has been perfectly clear: communities do not want more cops. On February 7, at the most recent of these meetings, 31 residents of Halifax and Dartmouth took part in public consultation. Of the 31 presenters, 26 opposed the budget increase, while just five spoke in favour.
The minority supporting police budget increases consisted of three members of national and local police associations, whose obvious bias was entirely ignored by the budget committee. The other two were landlords, one of whom represents the Investment Property Owners Association. It’s not surprising to hear uncritical, pro-police-state propaganda from those who benefit financially from making life more and more difficult for the rest of us. The Halifax Budget Committee members should be embarrassed that they opted to overlook these conflicts of interest.
The community members who spoke against the increase grounded their arguments in both objective evidence and personal experience. They named the growing trend of criminalizing youth and unhoused community members, as well as the crisis of child poverty in Nova Scotia. They spoke about the evidence that what makes cities safer and more equitable is funding community services and programs, while funding policing causes numerous harms—the most severe being the steadily increasing rate at which police in so-called Canada are killing the people they claim to protect, especially Black and Indigenous people.
Presenters also spoke about the acute need for accessible and free mental-health support, instead of pretending police are in any way equipped to provide this care. They raised how the clear recommendations made in Defunding the Police: Defining the Way Forward for HRM have been completely ignored by HRP and the Board of Police Commissioners, as exemplified by the ongoing practice of racist street checks.
As an attendee and presenter, I felt the deep concern and care for all community members that came through powerfully in every speech. Many people had taken time off work or school or had had to change their schedules in order to attend this Wednesday morning meeting.
Redefining public safety
After February 7, City Council decided to defer its decision on the HRP and RCMP budgets until after the Community Safety budget meeting. This meeting will concern the 2023-2026 Public Safety Strategy, which seeks to “advance holistic, upstream approaches to public safety and ensure public safety is a responsibility shared across the municipality for the greatest collective impact.” After ensuring that this is fully funded, they will once again discuss the HRP and RCMP budget request on March 6. Public participation is open for this meeting.
This delay and emphasis on the strategy, while no guarantee of rejecting the budget increase, offers some evidence that the sustained, unambiguous response from the community is giving Council pause. It’s forcing them to at least delay their decision and seriously consider alternatives to throwing more cops at every municipal issue.
At each of these public consultations, people have gone out of their way to make their voices heard, not only this year but going back many years. And year after year, it seems, the demands of the people are denied as HRM’s pro-police Council grants increase after increase.
While frustrating at times, these budget meetings are beacons that the tides are turning. With support from dedicated local organizers, more and more of our co-workers, neighbours, and friends are learning about the harmful impacts that policing has on our lives, on the places where we live.
Pouring more public money into policing is always to the detriment of what actually needs more funding: affordable housing, education, childcare, food, healthcare, all of these systems that determine quality of life for every person.
Our eyes are being opened, and with knowledge we gain the courage and determination to demand better, nonviolent, care-centred models.
Author
Did you like this article? Help us produce more like it by donating $1, $2, or $5. Donate