A petition to defund the Vancouver Police has been launched by a Vancouver woman.
Amid growing calls to defund police departments across the United States, Samantha Monckton writes in a Change.org petition that Canada must examine the possibility, too.
"The Vancouver Police Department budget has grown more than $100 million in the last decade, to about $314 million in 2020," writes Monckton.
"We call on the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Police Board to research and implement defunding of the police budget to create more funding for social services without taking away from core police work, but allowing for other professionals with the expertise to help."
Moncton also includes an adapted letter to the City of Vancouver that argues that increased police presence does not keep the city safe. Instead, the letter states that, "it directly threatens the lives of our most vulnerable community members (Black, Indigenous, people of colour, transgender, Two-Spirit, queer, unhoused people in the DTES, street-based sex workers, people with disabilities, people experiencing poverty, etc.)."
As an alternative to increased police presence, Moncton says the City should invest in education, increased mental health services, housing initiatives, income security, harm reduction services, accessible rehabilitation, arts and cultural programs, social workers, conflict resolution services, transformative justice, and other vital community-based support systems.
As police budget cuts are made each year, Moncton adds that former VPD officers should be educated and retrained to work in other arenas of the broader public sector.
Finally, Moncton notes that all of the changes, "must be undertaken in meaningful consultation with the First Nations upon whose unceded land you serve."
The petition, entitled "Defund the Vancouver Police Department," has gained 2,027 signatures in approximately one week.
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