Police defunding movement gains steam in Montreal as Mayor Plante weighs in

Could Montreal defund police? Some experts and activists are making a case for defunding police in Montreal, and reallocating money to deal with social services.

Montreal — Tens of thousands of people taking to the streets in the past two weeks have begun to coalesce around a buzzword: defunding.

Specifically, people across North America, including Canada, are lobbying their local elected officials to defund police forces, saying that to fix chronic policing problems, shrinking is needed more than reform.

But could this happen in Montreal, too?

“I'm glad that we're able to have this conversation,” Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said Monday.

She said she was open to the idea, but warned people not to expect any rash moves. Policing is ultimately a local issue, she said.

“We need to look at this as ‘Here in Quebec, how do we see our police? How do we move forward with this very important issue?”

The sudden emergence of the defunding idea has mystified a lot of people this week, said one former police officer, but that’s partly because those in favour of it often aren’t taking much time to explain their position.

“I don't think it’s well explained or well laid out,” said former RCMP officer Alain Babineau.

Babineau says he believes in the logic behind defunding. It’s not about abolishing police, he says, but about giving part of their budgets to specialized groups equipped to handle, for example, homeless people or people with mental illness—both groups that often now have police responding to their emergency calls, despite a lack of specialized training.

“Police officers, they go from call to call to call to call,” Babineau said.

They don’t always have the time or take the time to deal with complex issues: a person’s mental health crisis, emergencies involving youth protection.

“They're so quick wih tickets and cuffs and guns, and then you end with horrific scenarios making the news,” Babineau said.

Police also tend to make up by far the largest portion of any city’s budget.

Montreal is far from the only city where the idea has been raised. In the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis, New York City has already moved funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services.

“We will only do that in a way that ensures the city will be safe,” said New York Mayor Bill De Blasio.

The mayor of Los Angeles, meanwhile, promised to cut as much as $150 million from that city’s police department’s budget.

And, in the most dramatic move, city councillors in Minneapolis announced on Sunday that a majority of them backed disbanding the city’s police force, saying they wanted to “dramatically rethink policing.”

Some believe Montreal could use a reform, too.

“The trust that's been lost has been lost not because of a few bad apples,” said Babineau. “It's been lost because of the inability to treat people respectfully and to serve the people equally.”

Despite Plante’s open response to the idea, Quebec Premier François Legault said he didn’t like the defunding idea, though he said there is a need to tackle racism within Quebec police forces.

“I don't see why we have to decrease the funding of police,” he said.

Those in favour say that even having the debate is one step forward, as they try to get across the message that policing needs to change.