Vancouver City Council will debate a motion next Tuesday, questioning B.C.’s director of police services, former RCMP assistant commissioner Wayne Rideout’s decision ordering the city to restore the $5.7 million to the Vancouver Police Department.
The Vancouver police board asked the province in March 2021 to review city council’s December 2020 decision to approve a 2021 police budget of about $316 million, which was slightly more than the previous year’s budget but around $5.7 million less than what the board requested due to public pressure from hundreds of delegations speaking to city council to “defund the police”.
In July 2020, City Council told the Vancouver Police Board that “it is this Council’s priority to respond to mental health, sex work, homelessness, and substance use with initiatives led by community, health agencies, social service providers and non-profit societies rather than policing”. Council asked the police board to “itemize the work they do that is related to mental health, homelessness, drug use, sex work, and the amount of money spent on it…” and this was never fully done say City Councillor Jean Swanson.
The BC Human Rights Commission, in their report, Equity is safer says, “De-tasking the police in key areas would improve community safety and particularly the safety of Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities who are disproportionately impacted by biased policing by investing in evidence-based services that reflect community needs. Improving community safety requires a shift in focus from the police as default responders to other community safety strategies. Key steps include de-tasking police as first responders to mental health crises, substance use crises and homelessness, and reallocating funding towards health-based services and housing supports,”
While the provincial government is committed to police reform, Vancouver Police continue to be changed with misconduct including sexual assault. A disciplinary decision posted online Wednesday against two police officers who handcuffed an Indigenous man and his 12-year-old granddaughter outside a Bank of Montreal branch in downtown Vancouver more than two years ago have been suspended and ordered to apologize for their “serious, blameworthy” misconduct.
“I have found that both [officers] acted oppressively in their dealings with Mr. Johnson and his granddaughter. The officers’ actions in arresting and handcuffing the parties was undertaken without reasonable and probable grounds,” wrote Brian Neal, a retired provincial court judge appointed to the case by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC).
While Vancouver Police’s increase funding request has now been restored, funding request by the Coalition Against Bigotry-Pacific have just been rejected.
Imtiaz Popat 