“I don’t think we can rely on governments, regardless of who is in power, to do the work that only mass movements can do.” – Angela Davis, Freedom is a constant struggle
Today, March 15, 2026, marks the 30th annual International Day Against Police Brutality. Started by Montreal-based group The Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (collectif opposé à la brutalité policière) in 1997, COBP’s goals have been to denounce the harassment, violence, intimidation, and abuse of power by police, and to inform people of their rights and lend support to victims.
This day reminds us of why we are a part of the movement to defund the police.
Across Canada since 2000, there have been
- 863 police-involved deaths where force was used—including 5 deaths since January 2026
- 2,351 deaths in custody—including in police cars, police station holding cells, provincial correctional centres for a sentence less than two years, federal correctional centres for a sentence of two or more years, prisoner transportation vehicles, court holding cells, immigration detention centres, youth detention centres, and psychiatric forensic facilities. (Source: trackinginjustice.ca)
The movement to defund the police has been researched and written about extensively by many talented writers and activists. In honour of the 30th annual International Day Against Police Brutality, we are going to share some of the writings and reflections by writer, activist, lawyer, and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Canada, Sandy Hudson from her book Defund: Black Lives, Policing, and Safety for All (2025) and bring it into conversation with our local context here in Victoria.
If the police were defunded, who would we call?
Early in the book, Hudson writes about an interaction with a woman who presents a thought experiment she has been posed countless times:
“If the police were defunded, what would she do if someone broke into her home and stole valuables? Who would she call? The question was not disingenuous, and this woman was nice enough so I delayed my departure to work through this hypothetical with her. First, I asked who she would call today if she were a victim of theft. She said the police (of course). When I pointed out that the police would have already failed at prevention in this scenario, since she would have already been the victim of theft, she conceded that this was a good point but insisted that what would happen next was crucial: police officers would arrive, gather evidence, investigate the crime, and catch the perpetrator. Perhaps there would be an investigation I said, but did she know the chances of the police charging someone—and not necessarily the right person—in the case of burglary in the United States? She was stunned when I told her it was less than 15 percent [According to Statistics Canada, it’s 24% in Canada, with 2% being youth under age 18.] There was no way, in her mind, that the rates could possibly be that low. But they are. Her perception of police effectiveness was wildly out of step with reality.
So, what would we do if the police were defunded? Probably the same thing we do with the police extremely funded, I told her. Call our insurance companies to recoup as much of the value of what was stolen as we could.” (p.2)
The call & controversy to Defund VicPD
Our recent Defund VicPD campaign to oppose the 2026 police budget request has resulted in council and police board discussions around the “resurgence” of the defund the police “agenda”, perceiving any discussion of the movement as a threat to their goals. The movement to defund the police is certainly not a “resurgence”, as resistance to policing has been around as long as there has been policing. The movement to defund the police is a decentralized international movement focused around the basic principle that the police do not provide public safety, and rather cause harm and produce violence. In more recent history, calls to defund the police became popular in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, becoming a rallying cry in the subsequent international protests, riots, and Black Lives Matter rallies. Locally, thousands of people gathered at Centennial Square in downtown Victoria to show solidarity at the Black Lives Matter rally—in spite of the risk of the novel coronavirus—to speak out against systemic racism and police violence disproportionately impacting Black, Indigenous and other racialized communities.
And despite all of this, police budgets have soared since 2020.
Victoria is no exception:
- 2021 VicPD Budget: $59 Million ($517 per capita)
- 2026 VicPD Budget: $90 Million ($750 per capita)
In 2026, the cost of policing in Victoria has increased by 45% in just 5 years, representing a 52% increase in total funding over that same time period, $19 million above inflation.
On the topic, Hudson writes:
“This is the problem with our approach to safety in our societies. Rather than doing the difficult work of dealing with the root causes of many of our social issues, we throw tons of money at police. Rather than rooting out poverty, for example, we by and large make many behaviours associated with poverty criminal and subject poor people to a revolving door of surveillance, suspicion, interrogation, punishment, and banishment. And while we throw a greater proportion of public money into policing year after year, the police have largely failed by every available metric to provide a safer, more secure society. Where they have been consistent is in carrying out policing as a form of social control and punishment against particular classes, races, and sexualities in our society.” (p.9)
Policing as a form of social control and punishment against particular classes, races, and sexualities in our society
In Victoria, the vast majority of events VicPD responds to are property damage, theft, or traffic incidents. Two-thirds of alleged crimes are not even reported to the police in Canada, and only 6% of sexual assaults are formally reported. Only a fraction of these cases will be prosecuted and result in a conviction. (Source: Statistics Canada).
“Violent offences” make up less than 15% of reports to police in BC, whereas “property offences” make up over 50% of reports. (Source: gov.bc.ca)
These stats highlights one of the truths informing the defund the police movement: The police do not prevent or resolve violence, but rather they cause it.
Many of VicPD’s responses to incidents include violence or the threat of violence.
From 2018-2021, VicPD filed:
- 3,338 use of force reports—including 1,055 reports where they stated the person was in crisis.
- 570 reports where they stated they injured someone—including 214 where the person was in crisis.
Policing in BC is both violent and racist. Data collected from 11 municipal police departments’ “ethnicity” statistics (2016-2021) for the general occurrence report roles they assign people (e.g. “Suspect”) demonstrated that policing in BC disproportionately profiles and targets Indigenous and Black people. There is also evidence demonstrating that VicPD continues to work with Boarder Security (CBSA) to deport people. This has not changed with the demands for funding for bodycams, “community policing” and diversity initiatives.
“Anti-racism is not a simple rhetorical repudiation of the scourge of racism. Politicians the world over are happy to give lip service to the theoretical idea of anti-racism but are reluctant to use their significant power to remove the ability of police to wield violence against Black and Indigenous people. Having this power and refusing to use it are repugnant examples of how some envision the solution to racism as a simple matter of decrying vile attitudes.
But no amount of agreeing that racism is bad and self-declaring that one is not racist will stop the police killings and violence against Black, Indigenous, and other communities that experience disproportionate targeting by the police. The solution requires fundamental shifts in the way our societies are organized…. Abolition is the answer, and defunding is the mechanism through which we can achieve it.” (p.16)
With there being so much evidence showing That policing isn’t working and is causing harm, why isn’t everyone on board?
“The simple fact is that some people don’t want “defund” to mean what it means. They might be in favour of vague attempts at addressing systemic issues inherent to policing but become nervous at the prescribed action defunding the police calls for and its challenge to very deeply held beliefs, value systems, and practices that make some people feel uncomfortable. I get it. We are calling for a significant shift in the way society is organized and in the way we collectively provide safety and security for one another. And yes, that might change the way you and I live. I can see how that might be daunting, but that does not mean it is irrational or an idea to be dismissed. And the reward—a more just society, wherein some of our most urgent manifestations of anti-Black racism and institutional inequality are eradicated—is undoubtedly worth it.” (p.14)
We believe it is worth it. If you’re reading this, you may very well agree. We need to keep talking to each other, our families and friends, and organizing with our communities to oppose police power and police funding. Local projects like Stop the Sweeps, The Backpack Project, Victoria, and other grass roots projects have done incredible organizing to support and advocate for our unhoused community members, opposing the police and bylaw violence against them. We all play a role in opposing police violence. Whether you write in to council, organize with your local PAC against police in schools, organize abolitionist book clubs, events, or gatherings, your involvement helps to progress this community movement forward.
We will leave you with the quote we started the article with from Angela Davis in her book, Freedom is a Constant Struggle (2016)
“I don’t think we can rely on governments, regardless of who is in power, to do the work that only mass movements can do.”