10 DEMANDS FOR DEFUNDING THE SPVM

provided by www.defundthespvm.com

DEFUND
1. Immediately cut at least 50 percent from the $665 million SPVM budget and redirect these funds to the programs and services, managed by and for affected communities, listed below.

DISARM AND DEMILITARIZE
2. Withdraw all weapons from police officers, including tasers, batons, firearms, rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, and sound canons; disband militarized police units, including SWAT teams and other units using military grade weapons and surveillance equipment.

DECOLONIZE

3. Invest in Indigenous models of justice and empower Indigenous communities to address all harms committed by Indigenous people though these models; empower other oppressed communities, especially Black communities, to develop and run similar approaches to justice.

REINVEST
4. Invest in programs created and run by communities to prevent harm (including harms related to violence, mental illness, and drug use) and support transformative justice; empower communities to develop and manage programs that work for them, with the understanding that communities are not monolithic, experience multiple intersecting axes of oppression, and require leadership and programs that integrate and utilize an intersectional approach (e.g., LBGTQ2S, disability, sex work, drug use).

5. Create and fund unarmed service teams outside the police to address mental health and drug related crises, traffic violations, gender-based violence, juvenile “summary” offenses, and missing persons cases.

6. Invest in programs and services, including youth programs, recreation programs, and social housing, in presently criminalized communities; empower communities to develop and manage programs that work for them.

DECRIMINALIZE

7. Decriminalize all drugs, sex work, and HIV status, eliminate the SPVM drug squad, morality squad, Eclipse squad and all other units targeting marginalized communities, as well as all proactive surveillance programs, and release and expunge criminal records for drug and sex work charges.

8. Eliminate social control bylaws related to “incivilities,” and release and expunge all records related to these bylaws (including unpaid bylaw fines), including surveillance and enforcement in public transit.

9. Permanently withdraw police from schools and sports programs, and cease police patrols of public parks, community events, and other spaces in which youth congregate.

10. End the criminalization and surveillance of migration by eliminating all collaboration between the police and Can-
ada Border Services Agency (CBSA) agents and any other form of involvement of the SPVM in immigration matters.