Year-end debates about 2024 budgets have already begun across Canada, with cities like Waterloo and Ottawa proposing spikes in police budgets.
Despite public calls to “defund the police” in 2020, the budgets of Canadian police departments have continued to rise. In fact, when it comes to public safety budgets in Canada, the last five years have seen increasing investments in policing and under-investment in the social services and programs that contribute to safer cities.
The continued over-investment in policing is a limited and contradictory approach to safety. For one thing, police forces don’t address the root causes of violence and other harms.
