Open letter to Niagara Region Councillors Re 2023 Operating Budget for Niagara Regional Police Service (from Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association)

Dear Niagara Region Councillors,

At your January 12, 2023 Budget Review meeting many of you made a point about being fiscally responsible, to the extent of changing the addition of three staff needed to take additional customer service calls from permanent to temporary positions, even though it did not change the cost.

It would then be fiscally irresponsible of you to not ask the Niagara Regional Police to come back with a lower operating budget where calls that do not require a police response were shifted to a civilian (non-police) dispatched service. The Niagara Regional Police Service 2020 annual report (page 10) list of the top 2019 service calls, welfare checks (#3), mental health act (#12), and welfare checks “non urgent” (#16), made up 11,024 or 8.4% of all calls (from a total of 131,834, slightly different than in the Operating Budget presentation). This would be a significant reduction of the operating budget by shifting funding to an alternative service that not only would cost less but would not involve police in social problems, something they themselves say is not their purpose.

There is also a moral and equity reason for shifting these service calls away from police, not just a financial one. Welfare checks and mental health calls do not all require an armed response and can escalate dangerously and unnecessarily with the police, who are not the inappropriate (sic) service for these calls. We saw this last year with the police killing of a Black man in Port Colborne where the Special Investigations Unit report (Case # 22-OFD-229) said the police response “may not have been perfect” and that “more ought to have been done” to “address the mental health issues.”

We need to do better than “may not have been perfect,” especially where our lives are at stake. It would be irresponsible, not just financially but also morally and socially, to not ask for a different operating budget proposal that shifts welfare check and mental health calls to a civilian service specialized in those issues.

Thank you,

Saleh Waziruddin

Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association (executive committee member)