I hear the call for systemic change and for justice. Edmonton City Council’s work with community on End Poverty Edmonton and the Reach Edmonton Council, our drive to end homelessness, our work on truth and reconciliation with Indigenous Edmontonians as well as our work on tackling racism and fostering inclusion with our community and within our civic organization — all this work aligns with the letter’s demands.
But I hear and agree that there is much more to do.
I, alone, cannot speak for all of council on what we will do next — I am one vote of 13. I look forward to hearing the wisdom and suggestions of each and every one of my council colleagues when we discuss these issues on Wednesday at 9:30 am with the police and police commission. I don’t have all the answers, and it will take time to listen to the many suggestions coming forward, to look at what works in other places, and how we’ve evaluate the effectiveness of major policy changes. One step I believe Council can take, which many have called for, will be to direct immediate reactivation the City’s Anti-racism Advisory Committee, which was put on hold because of COVID-19.
I recognize this next point may be unsatisfactory to those aching for change now, but it must be said that it is difficult for the City to achieve systemic change alone when many of the key levers are in the hands of the provincial and federal governments. So I respectfully ask that this pressure on City Council also come to bear on MLAs, MPs, cabinet ministers and senior officials. So much of the preventative, enabling, justice-informed work of the initiatives I listed above — particularly on housing, poverty and mental health — also require system-level change leadership from senior orders of government, or (the model I favour) for provincial and federal leaders to courageously delegate the tools and resources to local governments to make change in our jurisdictions based on our community’s needs. Our local democracy is not perfect, but I believe it can be most responsive to driving change, if properly enabled — and Canadian cities are far from sufficiently empowered to deliver the societal level change our citizens are calling for.
We can more quickly reach the promised land if cities have all the tools to deliver.
That said, I do recognize there is still more we can do within the tools and resources we have available. Public debate about the right resource level for city services, including policing, as well as accountability mechanisms of policy directions, are all welcome in a free and open civic democracy. Suggesting we might find the resources for more prevention work and systemic change solutions by reallocating resources from policing has many implications. For one, much of the prevention work I agree we need more of requires a long-term commitment, even intergenerational commitment. But I can say I have long agreed with the premise that we cannot police ourselves out of systemic racism or societal injustices and challenges like poverty, addictions, mental health and trauma. We do need systems change and we do need culture change and I believe City Council is open to suggestions.
We are still listening and learning. Action, with due consideration, comes next.
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