Black Lives Matter Sudbury makes final push to defund police ahead of budget deliberations

Sudbury city councillors will soon be finalizing the municipality's 2021 budget, and they're still getting input from some community members on where dollars should — and should not — be allocated. 

As councillors prepare for a finance committee meeting Wednesday evening, members of Black Lives Matter Sudbury are making a final push to encourage them to reduce the city's police budget. Some members took part in an email blitz to mayor and council Tuesday evening. 

"We've taken it upon ourselves to you know try to organize our members to voice their opinions about what they want to see in their city. And a lot of what they want to see is moving money away from the GSPS [Greater Sudbury Police Service]," said Darius Garneau, a volunteer with the group.  

"They want to see some of that money go towards other things. Social services, decriminalization. All sorts of things that will help the community rather than hurt it."

'Slap in the face'

Black Lives Matter Sudbury is calling for the city to defund the GSPS by 10 per cent, which would amount to more than $6 million. 

This year the police service has in fact asked the city for a 4.8 per cent budget increase — an ask that Garneau said felt like "a slap in the face," but which he also said was unsurprising given trends in recent years in Sudbury and elsewhere in the province and country. 

"Most police budgets seem to be increasing, and crime rates seem to remain the same. And if, you know if they remain the same or they get better, then you would think that that would be you know a reason to maybe indicate that they might not need as much funding."

The GSPS decline CBC's request for an interview, but said in a statement that a 10 per cent budget cut would reduce it's staff by 50 members, and would have "a significant impact on our ability to respond to emergencies such as homicides, robberies, assaults, domestic violence or the myriad of other functions that our community and Government expect us to respond to." 

GSPS said as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement, it now has anti-racism training which every member will attend. It also said it has a working group focused on mental health response. 

Hopeful councillors 'could come around'

Garneau said even if the city were to simply maintain the 2020 budget levels for police — denying the requested increase — he would consider that a "step in the right direction." 

While Garneau said he hasn't always been happy with city councillors' responses to Black Lives Matter, he remains hopeful that they will take the group's message to heart. 

"I like to think that they could come around and that they're open to listening," he said.