Police need to show receipts for budget increase: Prof. Kempa

By CityNews Ottawa

The Ottawa Police Service is expected to ask for a budget increase of 2.5 per cent when the city's budget process begins tomorrow, Feb. 1.

How much police should receive from the city's tax base has been a hotly debated topic in Ottawa. Many residents have voiced their opposition to increasing the price of policing when other social services – such as mental health care, homeless shelters and addiction services – could deploy the funds to better serve the community.

Michael Kempa, criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, said most police services go over budget, including Ottawa's, so an increase is “a little bit of a red herring” when the city is on the hook to pay more at the end of the year anyways.

Instead, an increased budget has to come with receipts. Kempa wants to see how that money is going to be used to better align the police with the community's needs.

“If we're going to see a 2.5 per cent increase, I want to see the plan for how the police are planning to reorient themselves, really get creative and rebuild themselves as a key pillar in community safety and well-being,” said Kempa on The Sam Laprade Show. “This is not going to be overnight, it's iterative. It goes step by step.”

Kempa points to the fact that Ottawa has developed a “very loose framework” for a community safety and well being plan, and now is the time to fill in the details.

In 2020, former Chief of Police Peter Sloly testified in front of a parliamentary committee that other social services should be taking calls in situations for which police aren't suited or trained to respond. Sloly suggested dispatchers could assess the call and send out other services, such as mental health care.

“There are studies out there that estimate that you could save millions of dollars in policing by sending calls that don't need to come to the police to other social services,” Kempa said. “I'd like to see some money going in to figuring out exactly where we can pipework those calls.”

These suggestions aren't anti-police, he added, as many police agree that responded to mental health distress calls aren't something they are interested in or very good at dealing with.

With so much public attention on the handling of the 'Freedom Convoy' and the upcoming report from the Public Order Emergency Commission inquiry into the Trudeau government's declaration of a public order emergency, Kempa believes now is the time if police want to win back the public's support.

“They're going to be saying some quite confronting things about what needs to happen,” he said. “I would say embrace that and run with it. And you'll probably reap some goodwill from the from the city of Ottawa.”

Listen to the full interview with Michael Kempa on The Sam Laprade Show below.

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