My response to the Black Lives Matter Letter to City Council
I hear the call for systemic change and for justice. Edmonton City Council’s work with community on End Poverty Edmonton and the Reach Edmonton Council, our drive to end homelessness, our work on truth and reconciliation with Indigenous Edmontonians as well as our work on tackling racism and fostering inclusion with our community and within our civic organization — all this work aligns with the letter’s demands.
But I hear and agree that there is much more to do.
I, alone, cannot speak for all of council on what we will do next — I am one vote of 13. I look forward to hearing the wisdom and suggestions of each and every one of my council colleagues when we discuss these issues on Wednesday at 9:30 am with the police and police commission. I don’t have all the answers, and it will take time to listen to the many suggestions coming forward, to look at what works in other places, and how we’ve evaluate the effectiveness of major policy changes. One step I believe Council can take, which many have called for, will be to direct immediate reactivation the City’s Anti-racism Advisory Committee, which was put on hold because of COVID-19.
I recognize this next point may be unsatisfactory to those aching for change now, but it must be said that it is difficult for the City to achieve systemic change alone when many of the key levers are in the hands of the provincial and federal governments. So I respectfully ask that this pressure on City Council also come to bear on MLAs, MPs, cabinet ministers and senior officials. So much of the preventative, enabling, justice-informed work of the initiatives I listed above — particularly on housing, poverty and mental health — also require system-level change leadership from senior orders of government, or (the model I favour) for provincial and federal leaders to courageously delegate the tools and resources to local governments to make change in our jurisdictions based on our community’s needs. Our local democracy is not perfect, but I believe it can be most responsive to driving change, if properly enabled — and Canadian cities are far from sufficiently empowered to deliver the societal level change our citizens are calling for.
We can more quickly reach the promised land if cities have all the tools to deliver.
That said, I do recognize there is still more we can do within the tools and resources we have available. Public debate about the right resource level for city services, including policing, as well as accountability mechanisms of policy directions, are all welcome in a free and open civic democracy. Suggesting we might find the resources for more prevention work and systemic change solutions by reallocating resources from policing has many implications. For one, much of the prevention work I agree we need more of requires a long-term commitment, even intergenerational commitment. But I can say I have long agreed with the premise that we cannot police ourselves out of systemic racism or societal injustices and challenges like poverty, addictions, mental health and trauma. We do need systems change and we do need culture change and I believe City Council is open to suggestions.
We are still listening and learning. Action, with due consideration, comes next.
Do you have control over police budgets? Could they be changed with money funnelled towards specific crisis teams for mental health/homeless interventions?
Suggestion: EPS Arrest Survey
– Have both officer(s) and person arrested answer a brief carefully crafted survey about details of the arrest. These questions should be created with in-depth collaboration with both EPS, BLM and indigenous groups etc… These questions would be multiple choice and not necessarily short answer. The survey could also be targetted to certain types of arrests.
– arrestees would receive a text or email invitation to compete the survey. If still in detention their lawyer or a public official could provide them with access to technology to compete it within a certain time period.
– questions in survey should deal with use of force and profiling. Surveys that have major discrepancies between officers and arrestee responses should be flagged for review.
– this would not replace a complaint system, but would provide data and track trends about the use of force and possible profiling that is occurring. Could also possibly tie it to data regarding the location of the arrest.
– this survey may also be able to track patterns of behaviour for officers to support early intervention and proactive support and training.
– it would be important to have specific and enforced reprucussions to ensure all parties are aware they need to respond truthfully.
This is just a rough idea I thought I would share of a somewhat immediate step EPS could take to identify pockets of concern.
A commitment to freeze the policing budget at current levels would be a good first step. Then any “extra” put towards social services that would reduce the need for policing. Quietly shifting the roles of mental health, housing and traffic management would go a long way to preventing cops from being seen as bullies.
Hi Don,
Thank you for your quick response to the dialogue. I think another action that city council can take at this time, aside from the one that you mentioned regarding the Anti-Racism Council, would be to end the practice of carding. It is widely known and confirmed that carding is racial profiling. My white skin never gets me carded anywhere.
Also, please make a change to the budget for 2019-2022. I understand that abolition will take a long time; however, the sooner there is a change to the budget, the better. I ask you to following the example of Los Angeles and allocate (at least) 8% to the communities policed most heavily.
I know you are one vote of 13. Therefore, I will endeavour to contact my councillor prior to Wednesday morning. I will also contact my MLA, although lately I have been pressing Mr. Rod Loyola about Bills 1 and 10, provincial parks and the pending climate crisis. I will contact him about what we can do at the provincial level to afford the municipality more freedoms to self-govern. Nevertheless, I still believe that the Edmonton Police Service is at the command of the Edmonton City Council.
Thank you for everything you do.
It was disturbing to read about Mr. Rukundo’s experience with our EPS and the lack of comment from politicians in oversight that such use of force is not acceptable and even raises questions of racism. While everyone is condemning what’s occurring in the US, we are silent about our own experiences in our own community. It is hypocritical.
Pres. Obama has a simple call to action to mayors. Albeit this is in the US context, I think it is relevant here too: “Mayors and other City Council officials are uniquely positioned to introduce common-sense limits on police use of force. That’s why the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance is calling on mayors to commit to the following actions:
1. REVIEW your police use of force policies.
2. ENGAGE your communities by including a diverse range of input, experiences, and stories in your review.
3. REPORT the findings of your review to your community and seek feedback.
4. REFORM your community’s police use of force policies.” (Obama.org)
We have pieces of the above in place, but it is past time for reform. Check out the US based Police Use of Force Project (http://useofforceproject.org/#project). We have some exceptional police officers and they serve us well, but they need to serve ALL of us well. Please do mandate the Police Commission to bring forward change.
So why are we talking about freezing transit service this summer instead of allocating the inflated eps budget? ETS is an important part of many POC Edmontonians lives & ability to make ends meet,the current levels of police funding is no where near as necessary
Hello Don!
Thank you so much for the message you have given! I think it is important to move forward this issue, and I have some ideas that I would like to see expressed for you Wednesday meeting.
I would first like to agree with some of the other comments here that it’s important to defund and cut into the budget of the EPS. I heard from various other people that the Edmonton Police Service spends a decent portion of their budget on community initiatives. I don’t believe this is beneficial at all because Police are not trained as social workers, psychologists, counsellors, or any of the other various community and mental health focused careers that would bring positive change, rather than incite fear and be unable to properly handle this situation. Instead, I believe the city should use the money and put it directly into initiatives to help communities and hire social workers to put into the communities, especially Black and Indigenous Communities which often face the brunt of the systematic racism in our modern day police force. I think that our city should follow the lead of Camden, New Jersey, which disbanded and rebuilt the police service into one that was reoriented into a community building force, rather than a community policing force.
Another thing that think is really critical is that police culture needs to be dismantled. Police Culture is extremely toxic and destructive to communities, and it is because of these cultures that people cannot ask for change, since if they try to, then they will be excluded and considered outcasts of the Police Force. I think it’s important to have Police Officers hang out with the community and actually get to know them, and go through more comprehensive diversity and inclusion training. It’s also important for Police Officers to actually get to know the community and reacquaint themselves and become friendly with the citizenry as they once did. I believe that these ideas will really help and address a few of the concerns many citizen have, and be beneficial to improving race relations.
Again, thank you for your dedication to change and I really hope you can begin bringing progress to Edmonton!
Can you explain to me what in Sam Hill am I watching here Inexcusable https://www.facebook.com/natashawright23/videos/2613777195557857/
As a big supporter of your time and accomplishments in office I sincerely ask you how many more of these horrendous arrest videos have to surface before there is an acknowledgment that there is a big problem re policing in Edmonton – amid a lot of good policing that takes place??
If these violent/illegal arrests involved higher status persons there would be a great hullabaloo. If they were your son or daughter or the police chief’s son or daughter or a business leader’s son or daughter there would be big changes in a hurry.
Please put procedures in place or restructure the policing model so that these deplorable practices are stamped out as quickly as they would if higher status Edmontonians were being brutalized in this way.
Hello Don Iveson,
Please take a look at the work being done in Kwanlin Dun First Nation in Whitehorse. They have four specially trained community safety officers who patrol the community unarmed, building relationships and trust with the people and acting as the first response to any crisis. They are specially trained in conflic resolution, intergenerational trauma, bylaw interpretation, mental health issues and critical incident stress management. They even help community members with things such as carrying their groceries and making sure they get home safe at night. You can read an article about them here-> https://tgam.ca/37fzZ7X
They advocate on behalf of the community members if the RCMP ever need to get involved and through their efforts, create more efficient services from the RCMP and with positive outcomes for the people.
We need these types of community services in Edmonton that can support our BIPOC and more vulnerable communities. I am absolutely disheartened and disgusted to see the violence enacted by our police here. Especially such as the video posted in this thread and the Mr.Rukundo.
Defund the police and the violent interventions that come with their services. Violence will only lead to more violence. Please fund the community services that offer understanding, connection, build trust and decrease the stigma of mental health and addictions. Please invest in interventions that foster healing, growth and that humanize the people involved.
Thank you
I am appalled at how racism is being made out to be a police only problem. Indeed it exists and there is an urgent need to address it. However I fail to see how defunding the police is the primary and the first step towards ending racism. A city council with two people of colour will sit and decide on how to eradicate systematic racism? By defunding the police? Please note that people of colour get higher sentencing by the courts not the police. Why are we not discussing defunding of the judicial system and retraining lawyers and judges?
This argument to defund the police, especially the EPS, is completely devoid of facts and numbers and stats. I hope you will look into facts and not get swayed by sensational speculation being purposefully peddled by the media.
There are many effective means to truly address racism. We need to look at how to uplift our society, change our education system to include black/indigenous/ immigrant history and their stories of success, make room for people of colour in the education system, the government, and in positions of decision making. Empower people of colour by allowing them in spaces that are imbrued with white privilege. It’s time to look in the mirror as politicians and leaders and address the racial biases that operate within us. There’s so much more to do before we defund the police and stress out an already stretched out service. It’s sad and disheartening to see that a societal problem is being unreasonably blamed on the police service of our city.
The EPS works with utmost professionalism and the slightest of misconduct is reprimanded and taken up by PSB. Please talk to the other services that rely on EPS to do their work. EMS responders and social workers refuse to even enter people’s houses without police presence. People are not able to approach their neighbours to turn down music without calling the police, teachers and schools depend on the police when they aren’t able to deescalate a high school gang fight — all of this is out of fear of weapons. How can we talk about divestment of police when the rate of crimes with weapons is only increasing in our city?
I feel the city council needs to dismiss the idea of defunding the police and invest their time and resources towards truly addressing the problem of racism that plagues our society. Please, I urge you to think and act like a leader and not a politician, and make a genuine move towards eradicating racism. Defunding the police is not the solution to ending racism. Any repercussions from further taking away resources that ensure our city’s safety will be your Karma.
Do you only display comments that tell you how wonderful you are,how bad the cops are and how racist whites are. You’re making things worse by catering to one side of this. Are you aware that blacks and natives are racist as well? Do you really believe that whites are the only racists? You weren’t elected to meet demands of the black lives matter . You’re supposed to represent all of us. Your website reads like a whiney college humanities course. Every skin color has racists in it Don. I could send you dozens of videos of black on white crime that the media refuse to air because it doesn’t fit their narrative. You’re doing a horrible job with everything except pandering to certain groups.