The 2020 version of the Black Lives Matter campaign has moved to structural change. To a strategy whereby an existing police force is abolished and a new service-oriented and differently trained police force is established.
In the not so distant past, there was move to have police be required to have a college degree. This would
a. give them a different outlook than just law and order strongmen
b. screen out some who don't care to go to college and encourage those that do to take up policing.
We see a course of study with a broad spectrum of courses - criminology, sociology, psychology, Native studies. after which a very similar type of graduate could go into social work, policing, or other type of public interaction social-needs career.
Much if not most property crime is poverty based; most murders or serious assaults involve alcohol. So a rel way to reduce crime is to eliminate poverty, and alcohol consumption. Enlarged welfare state programs:
a strengthened universal family allowance program
a Basic Guaranteed income of say $1000 per month, taxable and pulled back through income tax where not needed
income re-distribution through carbon tax and universal carbon tax relief program.
Low-cost housing for those who need it. (Running water and modern plumbing a minimum human need where population densities make it possible. The abysmal living conditions of many reserves needs to be addressed.)
Free lunch program for elementary children.
Affordable college and university training to help people rise through self-improvement to being able to fend for themselves.
Restricted access to booze. Do we really need a liquor store on every corner? Ban on advertizing. Bars not open on Sundays, closing time brought down to 1 am or midnight, and not open in the morning, not til noon or 3 or 4 pm. (The old days of government sale took the profit motive out of the selling of alcohol. People complain of the toned down style of marketing that had been the style of the ALCB stores but that was their virtue -- they did not encourage people to buy alcohol - no free samples/tasting displays.)
Counselling not prison time for those who can't handle their booze.
The income supports and other new government spending listed here could be covered by growing government enterprise. Government liquor stores would, as they used to, reap a profit, where now the industry only creates small tax returns, to cover the massive social problems it helps cause. Housing could also be make a profit - if the city would stop selling its land, instead renting it out, it would have more money in the long term. (My views on nationalization of the oil sector are in other blogs.) Profit is to be made in business. Why should the people through their governments not get access to this money that otherwise goes to outside owners or rich muck-a-mucks who have money to burn, who invest in disastrous and anti-Earth exploitative industries around the world?
Also governments have money - it is a matter of wrong priority if they don't have the money for social needs. I bet Mayor Ivenson now wishes he had the more than $600M of taxpayers' money spent on the downtown arena. which the city is still paying off.
Even the Alberta government's expected $20B deficit this year is not an unassailable amount. With 4M people living in Alberta, $20B seems like a lot but is only $5000 each. An Albertan with taxable income of $150,000 pays 10 percent income tax (with an additional 2 percent added for the amount above $133,000, in this case $340). An Albertan with $150,000 taxable income pays the government $15,340 a year (and is still left with about $135,000 to cover other taxes and to spend on himself or herself). That $15,000 covers this year's per capita deficit for three people - and this is a low rate of taxation, the lowest in the country.
At the $150,000 level in every other province and territory, the rate is higher than Alberta's 12 percent. In Quebec it is 26 percent; in Manitoba it is 17 percent; in BC it is 15 percent, in Saskatchewan it is 15 percent.
Our highest rate is also low, and kicks in at higher amount, compared to other jurisdictions:
Alberta 15 per cent for amount more than $315,000
Manitoba 17 percent for amount more than $70,000
Saskatchewan 15 percent for amount more than $129,000
BC 17 percent for amount more than $154,000.
Much money is there if the government needs it.
And Alberta has great resources and is highly profitable even under its present short-sighted management. In years past the government made a surplus of more then $10B a year. Something like $2B of the present deficit was caused by the present government's recent cutting of corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy. And how much of the government's deficit was caused by using government funds to prop up corporate friends of the government during the oil downturn or using the pandemic as an excuse - or cover - to push money into government's friends' pockets?
A principle of taxation is to tax those who can afford it; a good policy of government is to aid those in need. The provincial government's stated intention seems to be the opposite on both those counts.
Defunding police, although a huge step, is just a beginning to wider actions based on how we want and expect our government agencies to serve the people.
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