After months of ‘work’--and then weeks of being kept out of the hands of the public--Alberta’s ‘Fair Deal’ Panel report was finally released by the UCP government last week.

Police violence and brutality happens with great and terrifying regularity here in Canada. This is not just an American problem.  

The proof of this brutality is in the Edmonton Police Service’s own reporting.

Inspired by the protests against the murder of George Floyd, and inflamed by numerous reports of police brutality in Canada against Black and Indigenous people, the movement to radically change the nature of policing in Canada continues to grow.

Most of our coverage to date has been about how this movement is fighting tor change at the municipal level. But what about the provincial government?

What does society look like when community safety isn't handled by armed cops authorized to kill people? We rejoin our conversation on disarming, defunding and dismantling the police with Reakash Walters and Molly Swain. 

Responding yesterday to criticism for letting Alberta Premier Jason Kenney take a question from a reporter for a controversial right-wing news site during Tuesday’s virtual COVID-19 update, Press Secretary Christine Myatt tweeted defensively that “I don’t think anybody wants the government deciding who is or is not a journalist.”

Oliver, the largest neighborhood by population in Edmonton, is named after Frank Oliver, a racist, corrupt, land thief who was instrumental in creating modern western Canada. This is not an isolated event, Edmonton has a rich history of naming neighborhoods, streets, parks, LRT stations and buildings after racist, criminal and problematic characters from history. 

The uprising against systemic racism and police brutality that was sparked by the murder of George Floyd has gone global. And the demands of the demonstrators are coalescing around a single goal: defund the police.

So what does that mean, to ‘defund the police?’

Edmonton and Calgary spend nine times more on the police than they spend on housing the homeless or social programs. Combined the two cities spend $750 million a year on cops. We talk with Reakash Walters and Molly Swain about how to divest from police and invest in the community. 

Budgets are moral documents. They allow you to see, mathematically and with great precision, what a government’s priorities are.

And for Alberta’s two biggest cities the top priority is clear – police. 

The UCP are trying to snatch away financial, social and education benefits from 2100 former foster kids. It's incredibly cruel and totally needless and A.C. and her lawyer Avnish Nanda have taken the government to court and won to keep these benefits – for now. We talk about this case with Nanda and Jenn Prosser an organizer and campaigner who grew up in foster care and kinship care during the aftermath of Klein's cuts.