RCMP’s top cop says defunding police is ‘more about funding all social services’
By Charlie Pinkerton. Published on Jun 23, 2020 10:07pm
R.C.M.P. commissioner Brenda Lucki speaks with reporters at a press conference from West Block about the recent shooting in Portapique, N.S. on Apr. 20, 2020. Andrew Meade/iPolitics
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki says she agrees with calls from activists to better fund needed mental health supports, but argued that stripping resources from frontline police officers is not a solution.
While several high-profile police killings of racialized people in mental distress in Canada have prompted calls for defunding police services, in favour of specialized supports for vulnerable populations, Lucki stressed that police officers are still required as first responders in these instances.
“I have said at three o’clock in the morning when somebody’s wielding a knife, and they’re suffering from a mental health crisis, that is not the time to bring in mental health practitioners,” Lucki said when posed the idea by Liberal MP Gary Anandasangaree, during an appearance Tuesday before the House public safety committee.
“It’s time for the RCMP to go in, get that person calm, get them to a place of safety and get them the help they need.”
READ MORE: RCMP union boss says cops are on board with body cameras plan
Lucki was testifying for the committee’s study of systemic racism in policing in Canada. She said more money needs to be given to have more readily available mental health supports in emergencies.
“So it’s not about defunding, it’s about funding everything that goes along and I think we can work better with our mental health practitioners,” Lucki said.
CBC News published a video earlier on Tuesday, part of a civil lawsuit being argued before the B.C. Supreme Court, that showed an RCMP officer in Kelowna dragging and stepping on a girl who had been restrained during a wellness check. Mona Wang, who CBC says was a student of the University of British Columbia’s nursing program, sued RCMP Cpl. Lacy Browning for physical and emotional abuse. The officer says she only used necessary force when Wang became violent.
The revelation of the Wang incident piles onto a disturbing trend in Canada, in which police across the country have been challenged for mishandling delicate scenarios, often-times by using unnecessary force towards people who aren’t white.
Ejaz Choudry, a 62-year-old man from Pakistan whose family say suffered from schizophrenia, was shot and killed by police in Mississauga over the weekend during a wellness check by police.
In May, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old Black woman, fell to her death from a balcony in Toronto, after police had arrived to help her.
The provincial Special Investigations Unit is looking into both Korchinski-Paquet’s and Choudry’s deaths.
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki says she agrees with calls from activists to better fund needed mental health supports, but argued that stripping resources from frontline police officers is not a solution.
While several high-profile police killings of racialized people in mental distress in Canada have prompted calls for defunding police services, in favour of specialized supports for vulnerable populations, Lucki stressed that police officers are still required as first responders in these instances.
“I have said at three o’clock in the morning when somebody’s wielding a knife, and they’re suffering from a mental health crisis, that is not the time to bring in mental health practitioners,” Lucki said when posed the idea by Liberal MP Gary Anandasangaree, during an appearance Tuesday before the House public safety committee.
“It’s time for the RCMP to go in, get that person calm, get them to a place of safety and get them the help they need.”
READ MORE: RCMP union boss says cops are on board with body cameras plan
Lucki was testifying for the committee’s study of systemic racism in policing in Canada. She said more money needs to be given to have more readily available mental health supports in emergencies.
“So it’s not about defunding, it’s about funding everything that goes along and I think we can work better with our mental health practitioners,” Lucki said.
CBC News published a video earlier on Tuesday, part of a civil lawsuit being argued before the B.C. Supreme Court, that showed an RCMP officer in Kelowna dragging and stepping on a girl who had been restrained during a wellness check. Mona Wang, who CBC says was a student of the University of British Columbia’s nursing program, sued RCMP Cpl. Lacy Browning for physical and emotional abuse. The officer says she only used necessary force when Wang became violent.
The revelation of the Wang incident piles onto a disturbing trend in Canada, in which police across the country have been challenged for mishandling delicate scenarios, often-times by using unnecessary force towards people who aren’t white.
Ejaz Choudry, a 62-year-old man from Pakistan whose family say suffered from schizophrenia, was shot and killed by police in Mississauga over the weekend during a wellness check by police.
In May, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old Black woman, fell to her death from a balcony in Toronto, after police had arrived to help her.
The provincial Special Investigations Unit is looking into both Korchinski-Paquet’s and Choudry’s deaths.
Two Indigenous people, Rodney Levi and Chantel Moore, have also been killed by police in New Brunswick this month. Levi was shot by an RCMP officer, while Moore was killed by an officer with the Edmundston Police Department. Both of their deaths are being looked into by investigatory bodies outside of the police forces.
The dashcam footage of the violent arrest of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam was also acquired and published by CBC News this month. Adam, who repeatedly swears at RCMP officers and accuses them of harassing him, is tackled, punched and choked by police in the video.
The incidents in Canada follow a number of incidents of law enforcement violence in the U.S., including the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, which have been seen as cause for weeks of anti-racism and anti-police violence protests that have continued south of the border. Likewise rallies have taken place in Canada, albeit less frequent than the everyday gatherings seen in the U.S.
READ MORE: NDP MP Green sponsors petition calling for nationwide ban on use of tear gas
In what’s seen as a response to calls for action, the federal police agency has promised to start a process of outfitting officers with body-worn cameras.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has described that plan as “one measure amongst many” that the government will pursue to push back against systemic racism that he and others in his government say exist within Canada’s institutions.
Systemic racism in the RCMP
During a series of media interviews almost two weeks ago Lucki denied the existence of systemic racism within the RCMP. She rolled back those comments the next day, saying that “I do know that systemic racism is part of every institution, the RCMP included.”
The topic was again brought up at Tuesday’s committee meeting, when Liberal MP Greg Fergus asked Lucki to provide a definition of systemic racism, in the context of how it exists in the RCMP.
Lucki stumbled through an answer, giving an example of a physical test that officers are subjected to.
“We have a physical abilities, a requirement evaluation, it’s an obstacle course. In there, there’s six foot mat, that you have to do a broad jump and when we put the lens on it and reviewed that physical requirements test, evidence told us that the average person can broad jump their height. So, of course, how many six foot people do we hire? And there are people in all different cultures that may not be six feet, including, there’s not a lot of women that are six feet tall,” Lucki said, before she was cut off by Fergus.
“That’s systemic discrimination,” Fergus said, “But I’m trying to think of systemic racism.”
Lucki then asked Gail Johnson, the chief human resources officer of the RCMP, who appeared by video on Tuesday to instead answer the question.
Earlier in her committee appearance, during a portion in which she read from prepared remarks, Lucki defended the police force at large, saying that she believed many officers have been misaligned because of the events of the last few weeks.
“I have listened to RCMP employees and their families who are demoralized by the anti-police narrative that is painting everyone unfairly with the same brush. But acknowledging that systemic racism is present in the force does not equate to employees being racist,” Lucki said.
Lucki went on to talk about how she means for her acknowledgement of systemic racism existing in the RCMP to be interpreted.
“It is about how an organization creates and maintains racial inequality, often caused by sometimes subtle and unintentional biases and police policies, practices and process that either privilege or disadvantage different groups of people,” the commissioner said.
RCMP officers close the road off near the scene of one of the victims of a shooting spree in Nova Scotia. Steve McKinley/Toronto Star
She also said the RCMP is determined to “seek out and eliminate all forms of racism and discrimination” that exist within it.
READ MORE: RCMP plan to buy more armoured vehicles amid new scrutiny over policing tactics
Lucki also said the force needs to “double down” on its diversity hiring efforts, revisiting its relocation requirements for officers and looking to ensure greater place-based recruitment, “so that officers remain in the communities that ties and roots are already established.”
Lucki also said she’s committed to working with the federal privacy commissioner to collect race-based policing data, which advocates have called for to get a better sense of how often police use force against visible minorities compared to white people.
She also said the RCMP is determined to “seek out and eliminate all forms of racism and discrimination” that exist within it.
READ MORE: RCMP plan to buy more armoured vehicles amid new scrutiny over policing tactics
Lucki also said the force needs to “double down” on its diversity hiring efforts, revisiting its relocation requirements for officers and looking to ensure greater place-based recruitment, “so that officers remain in the communities that ties and roots are already established.”
Lucki also said she’s committed to working with the federal privacy commissioner to collect race-based policing data, which advocates have called for to get a better sense of how often police use force against visible minorities compared to white people.
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