"Trudeau has done even less to address police brutality than Trump"

In a press conference this morning, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh spoke about the Trudeau government’s lack of concrete action on police brutality, racial profiling and other aspects of systemic racism in Canada in light of the Black Lives Matter movement and recent injuries and deaths of Indigenous and racialized Canadians at the hands of the RCMP and police. Singh pointed out that Trudeau has often spoken about systemic racism and police brutality in Canada but has not produced policies to counter it, whereas Trump has at least introduced new rules regarding chokeholds.

“When the blackface images surfaced, the Prime Minister apologized and we were asked to judge him by his actions,” Jagmeet Singh said. “Well, this is a movement right now where we’ve seen people killed and brutalized by the police, people crying out for mental health or in a health crisis or in wellness checks. We’ve seen the RCMP brutalize and kill people, specifically Indigenous people and racialized people. In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, why is the Prime Minister simply giving symbolic gestures and saying words instead of doing something concrete.

“The Prime Minister has done less to address police brutality, violence than even Trump has done, and that is shameful. So I call on the Prime Minister, and I demand that he act on that motion that it seems like his party is in support of. Let’s have a review of the budget of the RCMP so that we can shift resources away from policing and into community resources — healthcare workers responding to a healthcare crisis. We need to see a review of the use of force. We need to make sure that we’re emphasizing de-escalation over escalating conflict. We need to see better disclosure of the incidents of use of force and the associated costs of settlements. We need a review and an overhaul of the way policing is done. And we need the Prime Minister to commit to ending racial profiling at the federal level of the RCMP and other police services that are under the jurisdiction of the federal government. We don’t need the Prime Minister to take a knee, we need the Prime Minister to take a stand. And if we are asked to judge him by his actions, well his actions have not shown up, (they’ve) been insufficient, (they’ve) been not enough.” ■

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