{"id":38830,"date":"2020-06-11T14:16:37","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T18:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/?p=38830"},"modified":"2020-11-26T09:25:04","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T14:25:04","slug":"call-to-action-defund-the-police-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/story\/38830\/call-to-action-defund-the-police-in-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"CALL TO ACTION – Defund the Police in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Content Warning: Police violence, racism<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\"Black
\u00a9 Tim Aubry \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

JUMP TO THE PETITIONS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Just two days after the senseless murder of George Floyd in the US, Regis Korchinski-Paquet – an Afro-Indigenous Canadian woman, fell to her death off her 24th floor balcony in Toronto, shortly after the police were called to \u201cobserve\u201d her<\/strong><\/a>. One week later, this time in New Brunswick, Chantal Moore, a 26-year-old Indigenous mother from the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, was killed by police during a \u201cwellness check\u201d<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Police brutality and unchecked violence is a problem here, too<\/strong><\/a>. And despite decades of public education, advocacy, lobbying, lawsuits and protests, anti-Black and anti-Indigenous police brutality continues without much consequence.<\/p>\n\n

There is no official record in Canada of the number of people killed during encounters with police. Nor do police across the country track national data based on race or ethnicity – the information that would help identify and eliminate racism in law enforcement is conveniently missing. But an independent study has shown that Black, Indigenous and other racialized people, are at much greater risk of dying from police brutality in this country<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

As protests erupt around the world<\/strong><\/a> in response to George Floyd\u2019s murder, Canada must confront the reality of its own history,<\/strong><\/a> steeped in racial violence and inequality. Ongoing systemic bias and racism is baked into a country founded on the violent dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their land to secure unfettered access for white settlers, and 200 hundred years of the violent enslaving of Black people.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cTo be Black in Canada is to live in slavery\u2019s \u2018afterlife\u2019 and to have one\u2019s existence demarcated by \u2018skewed life chances, limited access to health and education, premature death, incarceration, and impoverishment.\u201d <\/em><\/p>– Robyn Maynard, Policing Black Lives: State Violence from Slavery to the Present<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n

The environmental community will not stay silent in the face of systemic injustice. <\/strong>We must act and speak in solidarity with the Black communities and the movement for BIPOC lives. Fighting for a green and peaceful future includes speaking out against the unjust, racist, and systemic violence Black and Indigenous people face every day in Canada, especially when it\u2019s at the hands of the police. Being silent is not an option.<\/p>\n\n

At Greenpeace, we know that we cannot have a green and peaceful planet without justice<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 climate justice, economic justice, and racial justice.<\/p>\n\n

We support the Movement for Black Lives policy platform<\/a><\/strong>, which includes a future without jails, detention centers, youth facilities and prisons. We also support the call for accountability by families of the slain, who are demanding that as long as we are forced to have prisons, police officers who murder should be in them.<\/p>\n\n

We speak out because enough is enough <\/em>\u2014 no more Indigenous and Black lives lost.

<\/p><\/p>\n\n

Join Black and Indigenous groups in Canada in their calls to defund police violence and invest in healthy, peaceful communities instead.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Write to your Mayor, City Councillor, Provincial and Federal representatives and ask them to defund the police:<\/em><\/p>\n\n