Canadian Resources on Defunding/Divesting from Police
As a follow-up to a blogpost by Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto Sandy Hudson on policy options for defunding the police and creating alternative services of safety and support, we've put together a resource list of further background information on the subject of divesting from the police and reinvesting in communities:
Podcasts
- CBC's Front Burner: Defunding police: what it means and how it could work
- CBC's The Current: June 9, 2020
- Now Magazine's Now What: The Case for Defunding the Police, Explained
- CBC's Party Lines: Who feels served and protected?
- Sandy and Nora: Abolish the police
- Toronto Star's This Matters: Desmond Cole and the case for defending the police
- Bad and Bitchy: Episode 92
Talks/Segments
- TVO's The Agenda: The fight to end anti-Black racism (featuring Kike Ojo, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Sandy Hudson & Roger Dundas)
- TVO's The Agenda: What does defunding the police really mean (featuring, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Lori Anne Thomas, Michael Bryant)
- The Broadbent Institute Progress Summit: Policing Black Lives, Robyn Maynard
- TED x Talks: Skin I'm In: Policing, Injustice & Youth Defiance | Scot Wortley & Akwasi Owusu-Bempah
Print
- Excessive Force: Toronto's Fight to Reform City Policing - Alok Mukherjee with Tim Harper (Book)
- Policing Black Lives - Robyn Maynard (Book)
- Policy Options for Defunding the Police & Creating Alternative Services of Safety and Support - Sandy Hudson (Policy guide, Broadbent Institute)
- Divest from Police, Invest in Communities - Anthony Morgan (Policy commentary, Broadbent Institute)
- Are we ready to talk about defunding the police? - Alok Mukherjee (Opinion, Globe and Mail)
- Defunding The Police Will Save Black And Indigenous Lives In Canada - Sandy Hudson (Opinion, Huffington Post)
- For Black people calling the police can be dangerous. It’s time we had another option - Angelyn Francis (Opinion, Toronto Star)
- Defund Police? Dismantle Them? What Then? - Crawford Kilian (Analysis, The Tyee)
- Do I believe we can have a police-free future in our lifetime? Absolutely”: Policing expert Robyn Maynard (Q&A, Toronto Life)
- Op-ed: In Defunding The Police, We Cannot Forget Black Womxn (Samantha Peters and Danait Mehreteab, Anti-hate Network)
- Before you "defund" the police (Open letter to Toronto City Council) - Zero Gun Violence
- Abolish The Police: The Financial Cost Of Law Enforcement In Prairie Cities (Emily Riddle, Yellowhead Institute)
News
Policy Options for Defunding the Police & Creating Alternative Services of Safety and Support
Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis by kneeling on his neck until he couldn’t breathe—while knowingly being filmed. Regis Korchinski-Paquet died after police arrived to her Toronto home, responding to a call to support a mental health crisis. Brampton’s D’Andre Campbell was shot and killed by police on his front lawn while experiencing a mental health crisis. Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation woman, Chantel Moore was killed by police in New Brunswick while they were performing a wellness check. Many people who are hearing about these incidents are considering—for the first time—what Black people mean when we call for defunding the police. The call demands that we divest funding from police services and invest in other programs that are better equipped to deliver the safety and security needs of our society. The support for this call has been overwhelming. A cursory critical survey of the services that police provide show that police generally fail at executing their purported function. This moment calls for us to seriously consider what sort of policy changes are necessary to accomplish our goal of divesting from this anti-Black institution, and reinvesting in crucial social services.
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