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Defund2Fund is getting bigger and more organized every day
76 Plays4 years ago
We speak with Courtney Walcott and LJ Parker about their work with the Defund2Fund coalition on defunding the police in Calgary as well as psychopathic challenge coins, why so many teachers and principals think it's ok to use the n-word in school, domestic violence in the Calgary Police Service and more.
If you like this podcast and you want to support it go to https://www.theprogressreport.ca/patrons and become a monthly patron!
Further reading:
- Calgary police officer charged with domestic offences
- Calgary Police Service Firearms Training Unit challenge coin
- Longer thread on police challenge coins
- Students suspended over recording of Calgary school principal using N-word
- Hundreds of Calgary students join anti-racism walkout at Bishop McNally High School
- Bishop McNally students allege truck tried to hit them during anti-racism walkout
- 'Unbelievably inappropriate': Calgary police prohibit distribution of 'offensive' coin
- Defund2Fund
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Progress Alberta and Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Progress Alberta is proud to be a part of the Harbinger Media Network. Did you know that more than 75% of Canadian news and politics podcast downloads are actually American content? Harbinger Media is here to change that. Find out more at HarbingerMediaNetwork.com. Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report.
Defund to Fund Coalition: Guests Discuss Roles
00:00:19
Speaker
I am your host Duncan Kinney. We're recording today here in Amiskwichiwa Skyegan, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta. And joining us today are two folks
00:00:28
Speaker
from Calgary to talk about the defunding the police efforts that are going on down there. A lot of that work has come under the banner of a new coalition called Defund to Fund, and we have two members of this coalition with us to talk about this today. First up is Courtney Walcott. He's a member of this coalition and a teacher in Calgary, and we also have L.J. Parker, who was the person who got the initial
00:00:55
Speaker
petition going in order to start identifying supporters. So Courtney and LJ, welcome to the progress report.
Systemic Racism and Coalition Unity
00:01:01
Speaker
Hello. Thank you for having me. Same here. I appreciate being here.
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we've done a lot of coverage and work on defunding and abolishing the police here in Edmonton. And it's time for Calgary to get a turn. And there's a lot of stuff going on in Calgary. So what's, what's the best place to get? Why don't we, why don't we start with defund to fund and like, what is this group? You know, how did it come together? What are they asking for? Why don't you give us the kind of Kohl's notes?
Purpose and Goals of the Coalition
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Uh, defund to fund it's,
00:01:35
Speaker
The thing about Calgary, really one important thing about Calgary is actually just that there are so many different advocacy groups that are separate. We're talking people are everywhere, we're passionate about change, but there wasn't a lot of unity. Partially just because Calgary is so diverse and everyone has such very specific needs that they wanted to be addressed. But throughout this summer, people felt empowered to finally speak and feel kind of safe in
00:02:02
Speaker
the shared experience of systemic racism. And when the public forum that City Hall had, on anti-racism provided this opportunity for the public to speak, everyone started to hear a similar theme. Interactions with the police, systemically, are problematic. And people finally felt that we had power just to speak up to something that we didn't know we could speak on before. The end result,
00:02:31
Speaker
is we felt like we weren't
Highlighting Resource Misallocation
00:02:32
Speaker
alone. So the Defund Defund Coalition came about by just collecting members of different groups and organizations to finally come together to fight amongst ourselves over what Defund would look like within this city and present a unified front to city council. And let's see if they do something with it.
00:02:51
Speaker
And Elga, you were instrumental in kind of getting this started too. Why don't you talk about the petition you got going and really like how it all started and got going. Yeah, so it's actually kind of funny because I was on your site and I went through the budget of both Calgary and Edmonton and realized Calgary gets a lot of money.
00:03:17
Speaker
for the police service and I thought it was insane. So from a taxpayer taking race out of it, I was just like, okay, people should be probably upset about this. Like their budget is almost double what public transit is and that's not okay. Especially for the job that they're doing, like they're doing a dangerous job, but they're not doing it great. Yeah. I mean, they have the exclusive state sanctioned violent or use of violence, right? And
00:03:46
Speaker
and story after story is coming out of them abusing that privilege. Absolutely.
Calgary's Emerging Protest Culture
00:03:53
Speaker
And so, you know, you come together and you, you know, you pull this petition together, these allies start coming together and there are a lot of, of protests and a lot of kind of on the streets action in Calgary over, over the summertime. Yes.
00:04:14
Speaker
And I grew up in Calgary, and I don't remember a huge culture of people getting in the streets of protest. Would you say this is new and exciting? Oh, it's very exciting for me. That's for sure. I mean, I moved to Calgary in 2006, and my first five years when I was the only things that I saw active in the street were
00:04:37
Speaker
Uh, well, uh, for example, the Aryan brotherhood, who, when they did their down, their white supremacist march, uh, in the just like 2008, 2009, uh, downtown Calgary, that was fascinating for me because as someone who was from Toronto, very multicultural city coming here to seeing that that is something that had, that was even remote, but there were citizens already been asking for that. And then 10 years of silence almost right after that, where you have black lives matter happening across Canada and Calgary is just kind of sitting there whispering a
00:05:06
Speaker
right now, I'm hoping that nobody notices. So this summer, I don't exactly, like, I couldn't understand, I couldn't tell you why George Floyd sparked something amongst Calgarians that Trayvon Martin, the Philharmonic Castile's didn't. I don't know exactly what's the difference, but it's, it's good to see. It's good to see finally, it's good to see that people are feeling safe enough to speak and damn sure it's good to see
00:05:34
Speaker
that a lot of us aren't alone in feeling the way we feel. Yeah. For me, I lived here my entire
Public Demonstrations and Impact
00:05:42
Speaker
life. I spent like a little bit of time in Edmonton, but primarily I've been in Alberta.
00:05:48
Speaker
It's weird cause you're not sure about the black community or even like, I live in the Northeast and if you don't live in Calgary, it's like the most probably diverse part of the city. So it's just weird for me to see so many people of color out in one spot. I was like, holy crap, we actually live here. It's wild. And then I, I guess I'm used to seeing protests, but it's usually like little ones worth like 20 people. And then like you have like a counter protest or,
00:06:18
Speaker
And that's about it. So like, you know, thousands of people coming together was really interesting to watch. It'll be interesting to see what happens months from now when it's colder because it gets really cold here and people kind of stop doing things. So we'll see what happens.
00:06:37
Speaker
Yeah. Winter protest season is always a time just to see whether, uh, whether you test people's true motivations and commitment, um, operators winners will do that too. So, uh, you know, Calgary has several, you know, black lives matter, George Floyd, you know, and police brutality defund the police rallies over the, over the summer. And, uh, you know, was, was that really,
00:07:08
Speaker
Did that demonstrate to the police and to the city that people actually cared about this? Oh man, I'd say so. I think there was a degree of shock that I have from my own experience and within my own circles with the amount of people that decided to march every single time.
00:07:31
Speaker
It's so easy to brush these things off, right? If you have this major situation and you look outside your window and everybody's out there protesting, you actually have to take it seriously. And in the past, we've had similar things. We've had a lot of small protests and it's a similar concept in that if it's a small protest, well, you can brush it off because the numbers that are represented in that protest must represent the size of the issue. Now we know that that's not logical. We know that that's just not how it works. People sometimes you go on protests, maybe it's cold. Who cares? But when this happens,
00:08:00
Speaker
and thousands of people showed up on the streets multiple times in the same week, sometimes in the middle of a work day, right? During the middle of a pandemic and safely. I don't think anybody could turn their eyes to that.
00:08:14
Speaker
I personally, it's weird, none of my friends have marched
Personal Experiences with Police Issues
00:08:17
Speaker
with me. They're always like, oh man, like what you're dealing with is so fucked up. I'm like, okay, like you have free days too. Like, why don't you come down with me? But I'm not going to force anyone. So that's kind of been me with like, just, you know, like the BLM side, just hanging out with them for that stuff. But I guess I could say I'm a little disappointed.
00:08:43
Speaker
But that's only in my circle that nothing to do with the city really, or maybe it does have something to do with the city. I suppose to give some kind of context to this, what is the one kind of like story or anecdote that you go to when you're talking to people about this, about why, you know, the Calgary Police Service needs to be defunded, needs to be abolished, however you're framing it to them. You know, what is the thing that you point to as to like, this is why we're doing this?
00:09:14
Speaker
Uh, for me, it's very simple.
Debate on Police Budget Allocation
00:09:16
Speaker
It was, uh, $400 million to 60. And people are like, Oh, okay. What's the difference? And I'm like, well, $400 million is to the county police and it's $60 million of social services. And some of that was provincial funding. And they're just, it's, so if I'm, it's, it's actually just like LJ said, if I'm just a basic everyday taxpayer and I want to know what percentages of my dollar amount is going where, I mean,
00:09:43
Speaker
I know I get to choose when my dollar amount goes when I look at the school system. But when I think about that, the largest budget item in Calgary's budget report is the Calgary Police Service. I then instantly have to ask myself about efficiency and accountability. And off the bat, I'm saying, are this even a group that is... Are they fulfilling their purpose? And I actually have loved, I've loved some of the discussions that are going about, but what is the purpose of policing?
00:10:14
Speaker
And if it's about safety and reaction and all the variety of answers, courage, vigilance, pride, whatever you want to tell me that the purpose of policing is, at the end of the day, what it really is is about safety. And there are other ways that are just as necessary to keep people safe,
Proposal: 30% Police Budget Cut
00:10:32
Speaker
i.e. low-income housing supports, early childhood education supports, mental health supports, hiring more social workers, of which we're actually losing frontline workers all the time when it comes to those industries
00:10:44
Speaker
And yet every 19 out of 20 years, the Calgary police budget is getting more money. It's actually, it's not even personal and it can be personal because we have those examples too. We have the God forbid it died, you know, the above the law documentary. We have those one-on-one examples. I have my personal experiences. Every person of color I know in the city has had some form of an experience to a degree of like on a spectrum of good or bad. But when at the end of the day,
00:11:14
Speaker
If you're someone who's never had a bad experience with a police officer, I would simply just point to the money. It's overwhelming.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah, no, I, I a hundred percent agree. I have dealt with the police, like not me personally, but I've called them about certain things and I'm just like, okay. So you show up eight hours later or you show up a half an hour later, like, and when you look into their clearance, like rates, they're not great. So I always say, if I was doing my job, 50%, I probably wouldn't be paid.
00:11:52
Speaker
the amount that I'm being paid. And if what 85% of their budget is going towards salaries and stuff like that, maybe look at that. So that's usually how I frame it with people. I'm like, okay, so if you were doing your job perfectly, maybe I could justify that, but you're really not. So $401 million,
00:12:18
Speaker
especially when you look into what they're using all of like the extra money for outside of their salaries, it's kind of ridiculous. Like they opened Spy Hill for $25 million just this year. They bought two new helicopters. They upgrade their cars every single year for like $8 million each. Like the money is piling up and like next year it's just more stuff. And I just don't see where it's gonna end.
00:12:45
Speaker
It's the single largest line item, right? And then, and it's totally inviolate, you know, until now no one has ever dared to be like, Hey guys, Hey, Hey, uh, you know, would you mind spending a couple million dollars less? Like, no, there's no, uh, of all of the conservative fucking city councilors you have in Calgary, none of them have ever exhibited any type of, uh, of downward pressure on the police budget. You know what I mean? Yeah. And for me, the huge part of it all is it's like, when you want to talk about doing their job, um,
00:13:15
Speaker
half of the work that the police does is not their job. When dealing with like certain people in the community, it's like, you need a healthcare worker, you need some, it's not even their job, but they are, they are the only frontline available and they're getting paid to do so. So instead of actually paying someone to do the job that we need, we put that money into the police pockets because that's what we did yesterday. So why not do it tomorrow? I guess if that's the thought process.
00:13:44
Speaker
Well, I mean, that's an excellent segue, I think, because we had our police chief up here in Edmonton say, hey, like 30% of our calls are social work calls. And I think that that made its way, some version of that kind of made its way into your demands, right? Where it's like, reduce your budget by X amount because X amount isn't police work, right? What are, so I guess that's the follow-up question that is, what are the demands of defund-to-fund?
00:14:12
Speaker
Well, in the original petition, I like put things more towards like, obviously social services. Like I said, I live in the Northeast. So I went through like the customer or citizen survey. And I looked at like, what are people asking for in their neighborhoods? And it was like, senior care, low income housing,
00:14:32
Speaker
better transit, taking care of the road. So infrastructure, just like things like that, like basic things that you think that your money should be going towards. But then yeah, we expanded that into other social services. Right now we're trying to pin down actual like organizations that we can work with to direct them into having more funds. Yeah. And our dollar amount.
00:14:57
Speaker
Uh, was, it's not arbitrary either, actually. So we have a similar, similar number, uh, the Calgary, like not all of the police data is very transparent, but the one, this of the information that we do have 27% of their calls are also social. So cat defunded funds, that's cool. We just rounded up a little, approximately 30% of their budget then should be reduced or defunded and reallocated to fields that will service those.
00:15:24
Speaker
types of work, but a key concept that we discuss is actually that if you fund certain programs, whether that be just like LJ mentioned, low income housing, crime prevention, anti-bullying programs, if you fund, for example, mental health supports, by nature, you will actually see a reduction in crime anyway. So there's a huge question that goes around, how do we actually address crime? And if the only way we address crime is with reactionary forces,
00:15:54
Speaker
then we know that's not going to work because you're waiting for crime to happen and you're reacting to it. It's actually why the police force does so much of their community policing program. They have this concept ingrained into their practice. The problem is that it just shouldn't come from them. There's no way around it. They should not be providing social services. We have people who should be doing that.
00:16:18
Speaker
We just need to, we need to take that weight off of their shoulders and make sure that we have the properly trained people responding to the accurate cause, the right places. So the top level demand is 30% out of the Calgary Police Service budget and to distribute that funding to various kind of social work, social programs, social services, stuff that isn't policed and stuff that actually goes to the community.
Community Projects and Measuring Success
00:16:42
Speaker
Is that fair? And any other kind of like key demands that people should know about?
00:16:48
Speaker
I would like SROs, so school resource officers out of the schools because they don't do anything. Um, and actually there's no science or studies that prove that like either way. So, I mean, if there's nothing that says it's good or bad, just get rid of them. Um, I can't think of the other ones right now. Courtney's probably on top of it though.
00:17:12
Speaker
Oh, I got it. So one way, here's the thing about this whole process that we really want to make clear to people is that A, it's not our job to figure this stuff out. But as citizens, it's very important to point out that we are not being listened to or we have not been heard before. Maybe they'll listen to us now that we have the protest. Maybe they'll listen to us now that we're fighting for these things. So it's not our jobs. So it's a huge important, it's a huge important point to suggest that
00:17:40
Speaker
And to remind people that we voted for city council, so our expectation of where this money is going to go to come from random civilians is a little unfair because all we're ever going to get is a bureaucratic runaround. So we have ideas, but to kind of negate that potential concept is we pitched a series of suggestions, but the core one is actually to create a fund, right? That's hence the title, defund to fund, a fund.
00:18:07
Speaker
in which very similar to our mental health strategy in the city, proposals will be accepted so that they, and they can be funded short term, given measurable outcomes and the programs that are the most successful at addressing the outcomes of reduction of crime, as well as anti-racism supports amongst our communities. Those are the ones that will continue to get funding. The idea that there is just this magical organization that we can put money into,
00:18:34
Speaker
that will solve anti-racism doesn't exist. And yet that's what people demand from us. They're like, tell us exactly who we have to pay for to stop being racist. And I'm like, I can't do that. But we have to start by making the money available so that these programs might come to exist. So step one, at least step two, if that makes sense.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah, that does.
Activists vs Decision-Makers: Roles and Challenges
00:18:54
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, I think social movements and kind of activists, I think you need to have a clear set of demands, but you don't, you know, you're not policy wonks or experts. You don't need to have the 80 page PDF ready to go saying here's step one through 60 of how to do the thing that we want. You create your demands, you put pressure on the people who make the decisions and it's up to them to ultimately execute. I hope so. I guess that leads to my next question is,
City Officials' Hesitation and Activist Pressure
00:19:25
Speaker
That's the whole goal. I sent that letter to city councilors. I got some responses, some positives, some negatives, but defund the fund, when we sent our initial list of demands and commentary, the mayor's response was, yes, but where do you want the money to go? And I was like, oh, am I supposed to, I assume, I think he actually wanted me to provide the 80 page document because otherwise, I thought this was a conversation.
00:19:52
Speaker
So, okay, so then, so you've got your demands. You know, you've had these series of protests. There's a couple, there's an inflection point coming up, right? There's budget deliberations are happening in November. You know, I don't necessarily want you to give away your entire strategy here, but I suppose what I'm curious about is how is pressure going to be applied and put on city councilors and the police in order to kind of get, in order to make your demands come reality.
00:20:23
Speaker
You cannot approach this just one
Building Public Support for Budget Talks
00:20:27
Speaker
way. And that's part of what this coalition was about. It was collecting a group of people that all have a variety of different skills and review points and positions.
00:20:36
Speaker
So there will be, like we have a, there are, the fund-to-fund is hosted by projectcalvary.ca. So please go to projectcalvary.ca slash defund-to-fund. You'll see us on the first grid sign, the petition shared. We publish a series of written posts that outline who we are, what we are and what we do. And then we, we, we collect the signature so that city council knows that constituents are behind us. While all the while we are.
00:21:05
Speaker
likely going to see more protests coming up, one of which is actually tomorrow, that is not ours specifically because truth is, we don't need to organize them because people are out there organizing them on their own. And we're all on the same page. And that is probably the most scary and powerful thing for any politician to see is that there's unity in their opposition.
00:21:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think the comparison between Edmonton and Calgary just
Comparative Defunding Efforts: Calgary, Edmonton, Minneapolis
00:21:35
Speaker
has to be made. I grew up in Calgary. Edmonton has largely gone through its civic process to deal with this anger and deal with this outpouring of rage and anger and protest.
00:21:51
Speaker
I would say that the Edmonton City Council here was largely able to absorb it and deflect it into a pretty ultimately very minor bit of policy. It was a decrease of an increase of like $11 million in just the next budget cycle. The way that the police budget cycle works in Edmonton is that they essentially have four years of guaranteed funding that are like locked in. So this is like, it was a slight decrease of a planned increase.
00:22:20
Speaker
It's not great. And a lot of work was put in, right? 13,000 people sent their city councilor a letter. We had 15,000 people in the streets. And ultimately, this was the result. And then, I mean, if I was to bring another city in for comparison here, Minneapolis, for instance, where the murder of George Floyd happened,
00:22:44
Speaker
They burned down a Minneapolis police precinct and they actually disbanded the current form of the Minneapolis police. Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for the good folks of Calgary to start burning down their police stations, though, again, history shows that it would get results. But I suppose what I'm trying to say here is like,
Critique of Police Commissions
00:23:06
Speaker
I'm very encouraged by what's going on in Calgary. I want to see more of it, but the politicians are so slippery and they will, they, they, they'll swear that they're, they'll, that they're, they're going to do stuff that they're going to do stuff. And then when push comes to shove, you know, it's, it's, it's very easy to be disappointed by politicians. Yeah. Um, it's not even just like the politicians though, you have to think about like the police commission.
00:23:33
Speaker
These guys like write up like a document, hand it to the counselors and they're just like, okay. I'm like, um, you're just kind of signing checks. You're not looking into like what they're doing and it's out of control. So there's a lot of extra moving parts, like even like the Alberta government funding.
00:23:56
Speaker
like Calgary as well and Edmonton. It's just a lot of extra money and just needs to be checked out between everybody. But I'm thinking honestly, the police commission is like where my head is at.
00:24:11
Speaker
Yeah, there's the police act review that's happening right now. That's the provincial legislation that is responsible for overseeing how police forces work in Alberta. I think that's an important point to think about. Yeah, Edmonton and Calgary both have their police commissions. I got to be honest, our police commission up here is a giant waste of time. They didn't see fit to even tell us that they were buying a new tank.
Who Decides on Funding? Civilian Leadership Needed
00:24:39
Speaker
They like procured it in 2018. It showed up literally this summer, you know, at the height of everything. And they were like, oh yeah, we bought a tank surprise. Oh my God. I remember doing that. You can just rolls down the street being like, isn't that? Okay. Okay, cool. We got the tech down. That's fun.
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah. And then it was like literally a week after the tank press conference, the priest is the chief is like, okay, folks, I'm going to level with you. We are going on a serious listening tour. We are going to, we are going to really start listening and acting. And it's like, motherfucker, you like you rolled out a tank.
00:25:20
Speaker
Well, that was kind of like a tweet with our two new Hawks helicopters and they were like, we're fighting the war on crime. I'm like, Oh my God, what are you doing? This is not the time or the place to be doing that.
00:25:37
Speaker
And in the vein of being careful about actors who are definitely trying to maintain the status quo, the Calgary Police Chief said, oh yeah, we'll defund ourselves. I haven't looked into the specifics of what he's put on the table, but I would be very leery of what the Calgary Police Chief is putting out there. When he said that during the police meeting on September 10th and in the document that they were listening
00:26:05
Speaker
It's very interesting because in one hand I was like, I appreciate that offer. And on the other, that's not what I'm asking for. I don't want you to reallocate within your budget, although once again, sentiment received, but it's not the solution. The solution is for city council to lead. Do it. Make Calgary what Calgary is supposed to be.
00:26:30
Speaker
Exactly. Like the people who we elected, the civilian leadership of this quasi military force, they need to be responsible for defunding you, not yourself. Like a social worker that's hired by the police is a social worker that works for the police. Exactly. You are part of a system and that's what we're tackling in the system. I don't need the system to just be tweaked. I want a full transformation. I want new things, not old things made new. I want new things.
00:26:59
Speaker
but not new police equipment. Yes.
Racism in Schools: Protests and Power Imbalances
00:27:02
Speaker
I don't need a new house. Although they have some very fancy drones. All right. So, uh, Oh yeah, we got a, we had 10 going on 11 drones. They have a, uh, it's wild red light in their, in their police car. So I'll be driving home in my neighborhood and I'll see this just very bright red light coming from inside of a car and I'm very confused. And then I'll look up.
00:27:32
Speaker
Jesus Christ. Okay. Well, not in that vein at all, but just, I'm just, I have no good segue here, but I can't talk to a couple of folks working on this issue in Calgary and not talk about what's going on in Calgary schools over the past month or so. So not only are schools this tremendously fucked up place with like COVID-19 and like
00:27:53
Speaker
you know, infections and outbreaks, all this stuff. But like, in the past month or so, video from two different Calgary Catholic schools of teachers or principals using the N word like caught on video.
00:28:08
Speaker
Courtney, you're somewhat in this world. Can you just kind of run down what actually happened and what the response has been? The truth is, I can give you the public response, but just the way that the privacy is set up is that we don't know much and nobody knows almost anything what happens to these, the principals, the teachers, for a variety of reasons. But nonetheless, so many people are angry, but we also have to survive off of secondhand information
00:28:36
Speaker
But that's bureaucracy aside, right? But essentially, you got a principal in a school who overhears a group of students. That's how I understood it. So I say it with an insult. Using the N-word, she walks up to her. She joins that conversation. And she says, if you can say the N-word, why can't I? Or how come I can't say the N-word when you can't? And she actually said it. And for whatever reason, the kids reported it. But that's what I always get stuck with. I get stuck with anyone who feels the need to record a situation.
00:29:06
Speaker
they often suspect something's going to happen. So there is a whole series of contexts that is missing from this situation that all I can do is speculate. And that context is what you're seeing in Bishop McNally, in the sense that I have always had, I've had very bad experiences with, if you get someone who is a tradition, like an old school thinker, and they want to talk with the N-word, they say,
00:29:31
Speaker
ridiculous thing. So a teacher at Bishop and Now, sometime in the last two years, I'm not actually sure when it happened, although the video didn't just go live in the last couple of weeks, decided that it was almost antagonizing kids, right? It was like, oh, talking about just like calling black licorice
00:29:55
Speaker
bigger babies and I don't know what I don't want to do that word like that's just that's what it is and like just hear the shock and as a black person who dares have that conversation I've had many a time oh god like I can't understand why people think they can do that it's and then for it to all happen within a school oh just that it's it's heartbreaking to me it's heartbreaking
00:30:23
Speaker
And I'm just really hoping people figure it out, that these moments are just very obvious symptoms of larger problems.
00:30:33
Speaker
Sorry, um,
Protest Safety Concerns after Vehicle Attack
00:30:35
Speaker
I like the licorice conversation I've had at my workplace, like arguing why it was never okay to say and he's like, but I mean, that's just like, and it was the same reason she gave that it was just what they called them. I'm like, that that's not acceptable though.
00:30:55
Speaker
So, and especially repeating it now, and then on top of it, repeating it to students is really messed up. There's like a weird, not weird, there's an obvious power imbalance. So that's kind of the problem I have there. On my end, it was just like two colleagues talking about it and getting super irate, but it's the power imbalance and that's what I really have a problem with.
00:31:25
Speaker
Yeah, like one of the most fucked up things about this story, at least the St. Michael story, is that it was the students who were disciplined. And the principal has actually faced no discipline at all, apparently, according to CBC. And it's like, what? The students who, because they recorded the conversation and made it public of the principal using the N word, it's the students who get whatever disciplined or suspended. I don't know what the exact punishment was.
00:31:54
Speaker
But that's like, that's so fucked up. Yeah. It's, uh, schools, schools are a unique place where all these rules exist to protect kids. But then there are moments like this where it doesn't always seem like it protected them. Right. And that's what the whole recording rule is. It's to make sure that, uh, you know, for example, kids trying to record things in locker rooms and change rooms, stuff they put online, et cetera. That's the idea is to protect children.
00:32:22
Speaker
This seems like it was not in the spirit of that, that rule. Yeah, exactly. And, and so, but some of the reaction to this has been incredible, right? So students walked out of Bishop McNally en masse, held a rally at the school and then marched all the way to Calgary police service headquarters. Right. Uh, yeah. And which is impressive, uh, cause for a speed, right? Like I have.
00:32:48
Speaker
The fact that the nature of this went live and within a week this decision was made, this protest happened, the walk-out happened, that it was targeted, the students spoke so eloquently watching the news, I'm so proud, I just loved what they were doing speaking for themselves. I mean, that's what we took. That is exactly what we want from students is civic participation and that right there is the max level version.
00:33:17
Speaker
I couldn't be happy. However, I did mark anyone who left my class, I marked absent, but could be. And I think, I mean, the inspiring part is the rally and the fact that they held this demonstration and the video was incredible to watch. But then the news that came out afterwards was that there was a car attack, right? The details are still sketchy. No one has been charged, I don't believe. But the allegations from the students are that
00:33:47
Speaker
a truck tried to ram a bunch of students who were in the street as part of this protest, right? And this is incredibly troubling considering that we have more than 100 incidents like this in the United States of white supremacists using their cars as a weapon or their vehicles as a weapon against people who are protesting against police brutality and racial injustice. That keeps happening. It happens almost every single time we march in
Police Culture: Challenge Coins and Imagery
00:34:13
Speaker
the streets. It's not funny, but it's kind of like, oh,
00:34:16
Speaker
Okay, this is what's happening here. Sad how pessimistic you get when you actually, you do kind of end up finding it funny that things keep happening because just dark humor is the only way to survive the insanity of this. Yeah, like we had the uplifting students in the streets and then it was like- It's like, just in case you forgot, they're still out there, the crazy ones, right? It's like, yeah, you're like, oh, look, civic participation.
00:34:41
Speaker
And then you know that Confederate flag truck has got to be honking down the street somewhere. A yellow vester is out there saying very confusing things. Someone's out there calling you the Edward. Don't ever forget, even when everyone's on your side, you're still black.
00:34:58
Speaker
And again, I have no good segue for this one, but it is, again, a topic I definitely want to talk through with a few people. So, challenge coins. I don't know if anyone who is listening to this knows what I'm talking about when I'm talking about a challenge coin, but they're common amongst military and police. They're these little medallions that are used to promote team spirit.
00:35:19
Speaker
And the iconography and imagery that various police units in Edmonton and Calgary and across Alberta use on these challenge coins is a definite insight into how they view the world and the people they serve. And we'll have a couple of these in the show notes of links out to what they look like, but I'll just describe one and why don't we discuss it. So this one,
00:35:49
Speaker
is, uh, yeah. Uh, while I'm just waiting for it to load, just as a fun fact, the Canadian challenge coin website, where I got all of the pictures and where all the pictures have been distributed from, they actually were shut down today. So I don't know if they're just getting too much traffic or they realized that it, that all of the like, uh, like Punisher symbols and like thin blue line things and just like fucked up gun imagery, uh, was a bad look for the police services.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's conflicting. It makes no sense. The Punisher one bothers me because I'm pretty sure he does not want that used like that. I'm sure I read that.
00:36:42
Speaker
But also, the punisher is a vigilante who kills for justice. That is the exact opposite of what you want to brand yourself as, as a police officer. I will step outside of the law to make sure that justice is served. That's the brand new law.
00:37:03
Speaker
To extra judicially murder the people I don't like, yeah. I mean, the use of the Punisher symbol by police is, yeah, incredibly fascist and incredibly troubling.
00:37:14
Speaker
that it has become just kind of like de rigueur amongst this, you know, military, sorry, this, this police culture mindset, right? Like, so yeah, so, so my, my page won't load, but you essentially described it, right? It's, it is, it is a picture of a skull with a hold on it, the whole in it. It says saving lives underneath it. Like it's, it's a block saving lives etched on top of the block.
00:37:43
Speaker
with a skull, with a bullet hole, and a Calgary Police Service, I think, firearm training squad. And I mean, what else do you need to know? You want to talk basic symbolism. So saving lives through efficient killing is what I get from that bullet hole right on the ground.
00:38:09
Speaker
That is like, what a message is like we train people. And I think you want to, you want to, you want to talk the truth. It's like, okay, I actually, like I, police officers should be. Well, like capable of handling a gun, but to, to brand those challenge points with the image of a, of a, of a skull in a bullet hole is there's too much pride in death. There's too much pride in death. Yeah.
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah, I've got one here from the Innisfail Highway Patrol that has a couple of crossed guns and a skull.
00:38:57
Speaker
I don't understand why the Innisfail Highway Patrol has skulls and guns on their challenge coin, you know what I mean? There's one that I haven't been able, it was sent to me, it's got the- The Highway Patrol, I don't understand the guns. Unless you're actually looking for someone, I still don't think it's necessary.
00:39:21
Speaker
Yeah, you're catching people for speeding, right? Like, the thing that's in the skull's teeth is not a knife, but a pen. You are writing tickets, speeding tickets. Like, calm down, guy. You sit in a car with a fucking radar gun.
00:39:42
Speaker
Anyways, we'll have a good we'll have a link out to a couple of the the threads and the photos of these challenge coins But I don't think we need to spend a ton of time it but but the fact that these exist and that there are so many of them is really I mean evidence of police culture and
00:39:57
Speaker
how fucked up police culture is and how it is mutated into this weird vigilante occupying force, right? Like at some point we are going to become, at some point we're just going to have a police chief or maybe even just like a police association president just come out and say that like,
00:40:14
Speaker
You know, way around the town and not elected officials, like this law enforcement culture, quote unquote is, uh, yeah, it's tremendously scary and fucked up. And it's weird that it challenged coins, gives you a little fucking peek in
Addressing Police Domestic Violence and Accountability
00:40:29
Speaker
the head, but here we are. And we may lose the RCMP to a private militia, essentially. So there's always that.
00:40:35
Speaker
Yeah, the provincial police force shit is fucked up. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I don't even want to spend time thinking about that, but that's just like a long term Alberta separatist fucking project that is just like, yeah, not great. But I think we've got to close with something that literally came across my desk.
00:40:54
Speaker
uh, just like half an hour before we started close before we started recording. And that is a news release from the Calgary police themselves saying that a Calgary police officer has been charged with domestic offenses.
00:41:07
Speaker
specifically with assault and mischief to property following an alleged domestic dispute in a neighboring municipality, which is an interesting detail because a lot of cops don't actually live in the cities where they work. There's been studies under the United States where it's like, oh yeah,
00:41:29
Speaker
Well, definitely. And, and it's like, it's a lot easier to just like, Oh yeah, I, I, uh, to view the people you serve as kind of like this, this other, if you're, if you live like a 45 minute away and like Chester mirror or something, you know what I mean?
00:41:44
Speaker
The officer that was charged has been a police officer for 13 years. He's now on administrative leave with pay until his status can be properly reviewed. Here's the quote here. As is often the case in domestic incidents, his name is not being released to protect the identity and privacy of the victim. I believe there should be absolute transparency around cops who beat their partners.
00:42:14
Speaker
Um, uh, a bunch of stuff about how domestic violence is bad. Uh, anytime a member is involved in a domestic incident in Calgary, the case is also automatically investigated by a detective in the domestic conflict unit to ensure that the cases are dealt with consistently and appropriately, including making sure victims are connected to community supports. So that's very nice way to close that little news, uh, press release from the Calgary police service. So.
00:42:39
Speaker
I mean, why am I talking about this one single case of a Calgary police officer that, uh, that beat their partner? Well, uh, it's emblematic of a larger problem within police forces, right? Like, uh, there is a study from, I think the early 2000s that show that 40% of police officers, you know, are, uh, abused their partners, whether that number is high or low, you know, you can, you can disagree with the methodology. Sorry, what were you going to say there, Courtney?
00:43:06
Speaker
Yeah, right. Whether the 40% number is real or whether it's the 30% or 25%, I don't really fucking care. I think there's enough evidence to show. It should be 10%. It's problematic, right? It could be five, 10%. If it's 1%, and if you have 10,000 police officers across the country, that's a huge number of
00:43:29
Speaker
Exactly. I don't know what the average of domestic abuse amongst the general population is, but yeah, what it needs to be is fucking zero. If you are a police officer that is charged with domestic assault, you don't get to be a cop anymore. You get to find another job. There's nothing in the constitution that says that you're automatically guaranteed to be a cop for life, and I cannot think of anything more disqualifying than beating your partner.
00:43:56
Speaker
in a domestic assault situation. If anything shows that you are unable and that you should just simply not have a gun on your hip and be one of the people responsible for administering state-sanctioned violence, it's if you beat up your fucking domestic partner. That is just a hard red line for me.
00:44:15
Speaker
And I'm curious what you two would think about a proposal I've been trying to cede everywhere, which is any type of domestic violence, you're no longer police officer banned for life kind of thing, zero tolerance. And in the context that we would advocate for this around the police act being reviewed. I feel like any time they commit any crime, they shouldn't be a cop anymore.
00:44:39
Speaker
Like drinking and driving. I'm pretty sure that one just came up a few months ago too. And like she was on paid leave as well. Like any, like you're a cop enforcing the law, but you can break the law and get paid leave. That makes no sense. Yeah. That's the thing that sticks out to me actually. It's always the paid leave. Like I know for as a teacher, I'm held to this ridiculously high standard because of a common understanding.
00:45:07
Speaker
of the responsibility I hold in front of my students, with which I'm actually proud to serve. If I ever do something that disqualifies me for being safe in this room, I don't think I should ever be here again. I think that's completely fair. So I would hold that same standard to police officers. But of course, you know, not to be that guy, but do diligence. You do your due diligence and you make sure that there's a system in place. But if you are seeing someone who is
00:45:36
Speaker
If you are convicted of a crime, you can't avoid it anymore. The whole aspect of resigning pending a police review and nothing being won in record as part of the police act is crazy. The whole being put on paid leave. I get all of my salary to sit at home and wait to find out if I'm guilty of something. It's not okay. I would put you retroactive. Unpaid leave pending results of investigation. If guilty, you get nothing.
00:46:06
Speaker
If not guilty, okay, or bad, you get your money back. I don't even care. I'm thinking out loud.
00:46:12
Speaker
pay someone to sit at home while they're being investigated. There's just so much. Yeah. Cause like the average person, if you commit a crime, you've been charged, if you can't pay like post bail, any of that other stuff, like you're screwed. Like I, it, the paid leave is really annoying. Cause even with my job, like I've been suspended and I didn't get paid. It sucked. Like a whole week, not getting paid. It sucked.
00:46:37
Speaker
Like you learn your lesson. You won't do it again. But like what I did and assaulting someone is completely different. Like it. Yeah, it's frustrating. Yeah. And take it. Take it. I mean, take it. Take it past domestic abuse. Right. Like the God for to die case. Right. Like that police officer was unpaid leave for years. Right. I assume. Right. Or maybe he was back on the street. God. Actually, I think it was because someone else.
00:47:08
Speaker
He was, yeah. No, that's exactly, yeah. He went back on the street after God for the Die and that is where Anthony Heffernan was the, was his next assault. Yeah, he slammed his head into the ground and it was all on camera. He was ready to be charged and convicted and so on.
00:47:40
Speaker
So there's a whole and there's a whole ongoing process that's still involved in that one. But nonetheless, the fact that he was back on the street and ended up hurting someone else is a prime example.
00:47:53
Speaker
All right. Well, I think this has been a very illuminating conversation.
Supporting Defund to Fund and the Podcast
00:47:56
Speaker
I want to thank both of you for taking the time to come on the show. Courtney and Elgia, what's the best way for people to follow along what Defund to Fund is doing and help out and add their names and their voices to the fight to defund the police in Calgary? Projectcalgary.ca slash Defund to Fund, Defund to Fund, or at Defund to Fund on both Twitter and Instagram.
00:48:18
Speaker
throughout social media heavy and hoping to get our voices heard. Thanks for having us. Yeah, this is really great. I appreciate the time, appreciate the conversation. Again, the more boots we have on the ground in Calgary, we try to cover the province. It's called Progress Alberta is the name of the apparent organization.
00:48:40
Speaker
We try to broaden our interest past just Edmonton. Again, thank you so much for coming on. Folks, if you like this podcast and want to keep hearing more podcasts like it, there's a few things you can do to help us out. The easy one is, of course, The Holy Trinity. The like, share, and subscribe. Word about advertising is how we get the word out on this podcast. We do not buy ads on Facebook. We cannot afford billboards.
00:49:05
Speaker
So again, leaving a review also really helps too. But like, share, subscribe. If you like this podcast, share it with a friend. The other big thing you can do to support us is you can join the around 250 other folks who help keep this independent media project going. You can go to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons, put in your credit card, whatever you can afford, 5, 10, 15, God willing, $50 a month if you can afford it.
00:49:28
Speaker
and contribute that way. We would really appreciate it. Again, that URL is theprogressreport.ca slash patrons, and the link is also in the show notes. Also, if you have any notes, thoughts, comments, things you think I fucked up on, things you think I need to hear about, I'm very easy to reach. You can reach me on Twitter at Duncan Kinney, and you can reach me by email at DuncanKatprogressalberta.ca. Thanks so much to Cosmic Family Communist for the amazing theme. Thank you for listening, and goodbye.