Halifax police budget mostly panned during 2nd public consultation

The proposed 2024-25 Halifax Regional Police budget, which would see an increase of more than $4 million and 24 new positions — including 12 officers with extra mental health training — was mostly panned during a public consultation meeting on Wednesday night in Dartmouth, N.S.

The public consultation session at the Board of Police Commissioners meeting was follows a previous online meeting on Oct. 25, during which the majority of speakers also opposed the budget.

On Wednesday, 41 people spoke and nearly all said they did not support the budget framework.

Some of the speakers told the board they worked with vulnerable people and argued that adding more officers to the current force would do more harm than good. 

Natasha Hines, a board member of Wellness Within — a non-profit organization that works for reproductive justice, prison abolition, and health equity — said adding more officers who are trained to respond to mental health calls goes against a recommendation made in Halifax's Defunding the Police report.

That report recommended diverting most crisis calls to non-police-involved teams.

"Folks do not need an increasingly militarized police force responding to mental health distress, substance-use disorder and gender-based violence," Hines said.

"Police presence has been shown to add violence to what can already be violent situations. These folks need care, they may need medical attention and police are not the right response here."

'We have to look at community services'

Ellis Pickersgill, an outreach worker with youth in schools in the Cole Harbour area, also opposed the proposed budget increase. She said crime is rising because "desperation is rising" and the cost of living has led "many people" into desperate situations.

"We have to look at community services and not policing. I work with youth who will not ask for help if police are involved in any way. The addition of more police officers would not help these folks if they were in crisis. In fact, if they were given the option, they would rather remain in crisis," Pickersgill said.

Caitlin O'Neil, a health-care worker, raised similar concerns.

"I do not want more cops in hospitals and you cannot police your way out of a health-care crisis, you cannot police someone into being mentally well, you cannot police your way out of a housing crisis — in fact, policing typically makes this worse," O'Neil said.

Bea MacGregor, the CEO of Alderney Landing in downtown Dartmouth, spoke in favour of the budget. She said since COVID-19, there have been more homeless people "coming to our community in great numbers with high acuity, mental health, drug addiction, youth violence and all the crime that goes with these issues unfolding in our community."

MacGregor said Alderney Landing created a new position, a facility monitor, who works with community police officers and the downtown street navigator. She said that has helped keep the building safer. She said two years ago, the facilitator and a community police officer helped get eight youths off the streets and into courses "and help them advance and create stable situations."

Police in hospitals

Despite this success, MacGregor said there was an increase in crime in the area last spring. Fires were deliberately set in adjacent buildings and visitors were assaulted, she said. Alderney Landing using its own funding to hire officers made it a safer place.

"I will say that crime lowered due to police, that we have seen consistent compassionate caring from the police, that Alderney Landing doesn't have the budget any longer to be able to support it. We absolutely need increased policing," she said.

After the public consultation session ended, Lisa Blackburn, a local councillor and commissioner on the police board, tabled a motion. It directs the head of both Halifax Regional Police and the RCMP to work with Halifax's chief administrative officer to explore "options with the province of Nova Scotia with respect to alternatives to the legislative use of police officers in mental-health crisis situations."

"I think it's been made very clear tonight that one of the main concerns of the community is the mental-health crisis, and I think we have to come at this with an agreed set facts," Blackburn told the board. 

"One of them is that it is provincial legislation that mandates that a sworn officer be in attendance in hospital when somebody in mental-health crisis is brought in."

Blackburn's motion passed, but a final decision on the police budget will be made at a later date after more deliberation.