Montreal event calls attention to rising police budget

The Defund the Police Coalition has urged for a reduction of the budget allocated toward the police. The Coalition said since they asked for this decrease, the City of Montreal increased the budget. 

The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) is receiving the second highest increase in their budget in Montreal’s history, with an additional $45 million dollars this year. This historic boost provided the Montreal police with a $787 million budget in 2022.

"The current city government, Project Montreal, is an enemy," said journalist and volunteer for the Defund the Police Coalition Ted Rutland. "They have passed the two largest budget increases in the history of the city."

"They've increased the budget more since 2020, when a movement to defund the police and in support of Black residents and Indigenous residents, [and] other people harmed by police emerged," said Rutland. "They responded to that movement by going in the other direction – increasing the budget more than they had before there was a movement."

In July 2020, Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante said stating she would “look into defunding the police” during worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter and defunding the police. But that fall and every year since, Project Montreal has increased the police budget.

The Defund the Police Coalition held an educational event to draw attention to the rising police budget in Montreal and educate Montrealers on the harms associated with policing. 

Part of the event was to develop and grow a community that no longer wants to rely on policing and develop methods of harm reduction to handle crime instead of relying on the city to defund the police. Some of these methods include pushing for funding to go toward non-police support systems for those experiencing mental health crises or domestic violence and providing more after school activities for youth to divert them away from crime. 

"We need to build new ways of relating to one another in our communities ... and when we do that we also build the power to force governments to do what we want to do," said Rutland.