Sorry VPD, facts don’t care about your feelings

The Thorn on Thursdays | Dec 3 2020

Dec 03, 2020

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Black Lives Matter Anti-racism rally at Vancouver Art Gallery

Presenting at Vancouver City Hall this week, Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer explained his department’s desire for an even bigger share of the City budget by resorting to an evidence-free appeal to feelings. We’re sorry, Chief Palmer: the facts don’t care about your feelings. The facts are the crime rate is down, and the VPD’s use of racist street checks hasn’t stopped. No wonder the movement continues to demand defunding the police.

Justin McElroy @j_mcelroy

An interesting comment from Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer yesterday, as he explained to council why they needed extra funding. "Many people in the community would never be able to tell you if crime is up or down, but they know how they feel."

Justin McElroy @j_mcelroy

Contrary to what some people might be telling you, the Vancouver Police Department reports that property crime is down, the total crime rate is down, and violent crimes are the same as 2019 https://t.co/qM7Gcno7Sz

Vancouver 2021 budget comes before City Council

This week, Vancouver City Council has been hearing staff presentations and public speakers on the proposed City of Vancouver 2021 budget. Speakers on the budget are ongoing; Council debate and vote on the proposed budget is scheduled for December 8.

The proposed budget from City staff includes a 5% property tax increase and 1-2% cuts to every department -- except the Vancouver Police Department (VPD), whose budget is slated to increase by 0.7%, or approximately $2.5 million.

The proposed cuts to most City of Vancouver departments come as a result of decreased revenues due to the COVID pandemic.

The proposed increase to the VPD’s 2021 budget comes in spite of Councillor Jean Swanson’s motion B-4, passed by City Council in July, to “de-prioritize policing as a response to mental health, sex work, homelessness, and substance use and to prioritize funding community-led harm reduction and safety initiatives in these areas.” It also comes in spite of a City of Vancouver report from November 24 that recommends a $3.1 million cut to the VPD’s budget, a 1% decrease.

On Monday, the Vancouver Police Board approved a $6.4 million increase to the VPD’s budget, a 2.0% increase. The police portion of the staff presentation advocated for the 2.0% increase passed by the police board. The November 24 report and its recommended $3.1 million cut to the VPD’s budget was nowhere to be found in the staff presentations to council.

The large majority of those speaking to Council about the City budget appear to be speaking about the issue of the police budget. This includes both supporters of the movement to defund the VPD, and supporters of the VPD and its desired $6.4 million budget increase.

Many speakers in support of the VPD are engaging in vile poor-bashing arguments around the increased visibility of homelessness and drug use in Vancouver. What is needed in response to these arguments is education about alternative approaches to public safety through community-led initiatives.

Speakers in support of defunding the VPD have spoken among other things to the need to implement Jean Swanson’s motion B-4; the relevance of the movement to defund police which gained huge momentum in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis back in May; and to the VPD’s new poorbashing unit and the rampant over-policing of the poorest segments of Vancouver’s population.

Unfortunately, the movement to defund the VPD is hampered by the lack of a unified demand for a large numerical cut to the police budget. While the Defund the VPD, Fund our Communities campaign of the Democratic Socialists of Vancouver is calling for a 50% cut to the police budget, other local forces involved in campaigns to defund the police have refrained from calling for a specific numerical cut.

Back in the spring, Council passed a 1% cut to the VPD’s budget. The Vancouver Police Board rejected this cut and Council threw up their hands, even though the Provincial Police Act provides Council with the power to override the Vancouver Police Board and impose a cut. Under the Police Act, should Council refuse to approve the police budget, either Council or the Vancouver Police Board can appeal to the provincial Director of Police Services, who has the final say. City Council should override the police board and force the VPD to appeal to the province.

Recently, Seattle City Council passed a budget with an 18% cut to the police budget. This vote was preceded by a highly visible public campaign for a 50% cut to Seattle’s police budget, spearheaded by socialist Seattle council member Kshama Sawant, which forced Seattle City Council to make a compromise cut.

Indigenous Land Defenders continue to assert Sovereignty against Colonial BC Government

Indigenous-led opposition to extraction projects has long been a feature of politics in this land we now call “British Columbia.” Last week was no exception: first, a group of Indigenous land defenders blocked a major intersection in Vancouver to call on the government of Canada to “honour the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, to cancel the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, and to engage in meaningful reconciliation for historic and recent injustices committed by Canada.” Then, a group of Extinction Rebellion activists blocked railways in opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, “in solidarity with calls to action by land defenders.”

These recent actions follow on years of opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline project and other similar extraction projects supported by the governments of both British Columbia and Canada. In February, the world watched as the RCMP trampled the authority of the Wet’suwet’en people to defend their own territory against the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline project. The fight of the Wet’suwet’en is ongoing and has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic: just this week, Wet’suwet’en Women urged Dr. Bonnie Henry to shut down work camps amid COVID outbreaks. That the history of colonialism in Canada involved biological warfare - smallpox blankets - is certainly not forgotten in these present times.

Governments across Canada have consistently failed to meaningfully recognize Indigenous sovereignty. Even in BC, where the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been proclaimed into law, the government continues to fight Indigenous land claims. As The Narwhal reports, the Nuchatlaht people have sought legal recognition of their historic territory, only to face “a phoney defence designed to delay justice”: the BC government claiming the Nuchatlaht have “abandoned” their territory. To the BC government, as others have noted, “reconciliation” means Indigenous peoples must reconcile themselves to whatever rights and recognition the Canadian state allows them.

Wet'suwet'en call for shutdown of pipeline work camps as COVID-19 spreads north

As of Wednesday, more than 50 cases of COVID-19 were reported at the LNG Canada site in Kitimat, B.C., a fossil fuel mega-projected connected to fracking and gas extraction in northeast B.C. to be connected to the coast by pipelines. As noted above, this week 22 female chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en nation issued an open letter to Bonnie Henry calling on the Province to stop designating the pipeline construction work as essential and to stop work in order to prevent transmission of COVID-19:

“We understand that the province has declared oil and gas work an essential service, however, we strongly encourage you to reconsider. First, the economy cannot come before Indigenous lives; second, the protocols in place do not protect our most vulnerable communities; and lastly, our Houses and Clans have a right and responsibility to make decisions about what happens on our territories.”

General strikes in India: Solidarity rallies in BC

Farmers in India launched a major march on the Indian capital of Delhi this week, in response to a law by the far-right government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that revokes price guarantees for farmers and risks forcing many small farmers into bankruptcy. This coincided with a major general strike in the Indian capital of the sort that has been periodically taking place in response to pieces of anti-worker legislation passed by the Indian government. Jacobin Magazine has an excellent piece on the uprising, which it calls a revolution.

BC’s Sikh community organized two vehicle convoy rallies this week in solidarity with the uprisings in India. The first took place in Victoria on Tuesday. The second travelled from Surrey to Downtown Vancouver on Wednesday and involved hundreds of people. Many of the participants in the convoys have family members in India who are on the front lines of the uprising.

Argentina asks: What would a state-owned amazon look like?

Amazon’s e-commerce model has become central to a world in the grips of a pandemic. Despite breaking records on annual profits, hiring sprees, and its owner’s net worth, Amazon subjects many of its workers to brutal working conditions and exposure to COVID-19. Amazon maintains its power through militant union-busting tactics, including surveilling, smearing, and even trying to fire labour organizers within its ranks.

Workers have responded by organizing with greater and greater intensity, including a coordinated set of strikes and actions across 15 countries during Black Friday. A factory in Bessemer, Alabama could be the first Amazon warehouse in the US to unionize.

Even if working conditions improve, Amazon will continue to prioritize profit wherever possible. There have been calls for the US government to nationalize the online goliath. What would a nationalized Amazon look like? Argentina’s Correo Compras looks to answer that question.

Argentina already has a thriving economy of worker co-operatives, established after the country’s 2001 financial crisis, when workers won the right to take control of their bankrupt employers’ property & machinery. Correo Compras seeks to apply this model to e-commerce.

In The People’s Republic of Wal-Mart, authors Leigh Philips & Michal Rozworski argue that enormous companies like Amazon and Wal-Mart already have centrally planned economies larger than the Soviet Union at its height in the 1970s. Their infrastructure, if nationalized, could be used not to enrich its owners, but to protect the environment, streamline production, and secure the material needs of their workers and society as a whole.

Correo Compras seeks to put these ideas into practice. While there are serious questions about data security and surveillance that the state-owned company must seriously address, Correo Compras could provide a model for other parts of the world to build economies in service to people, not profits.