Another year has brought another proposal to expand the Waterloo Regional Police. What happened to calls by some residents to strip the police of funding and redirect it into social programs?

Calls for such a change gained steam with a big public protest in June 2020. Thousands marched in Kitchener to protest police brutality and racism after a white Minneapolis police officer murdered a Black man, George Floyd.

After the march, Waterloo city council called for police spending to be diverted to social programs amid “continued instances of racism, systemic racism, and oppression.”

Critics cited harm that police inflict on Black people, in asking politicians to reallocate police spending into social programs that address poverty and other social ills.

Local governments have instead accel

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