This Could Become Fashionable

Wherever the current anti-police and anti-racism movement takes us, there is one word that is now sweeping the policy world: defund. The application of the defund argument to perhaps the only truly essential government service — police protection of citizens and their rights and property from violence and theft, to distill it down to the idealized essence — is more than ironic. But the defund moment should run through all governments everywhere in search of spending that could be usefully deployed elsewhere.

There is no doubt that defundable elements exist within modern urban police structures in the United States and Canada. Such elements could be eliminated and the spending deployed more usefully elsewhere. Should trained police be acting as social workers and support for health services? And then there are the police unions. Through decades of fake-competition for interprovincial wage parity, the median 2020 wage for a Canadian police officer is $100,000. Unions are also said to share the blame for at least some of the troubles within North American police services.

But the defund movement should not stop at the local police department. Maybe this is a time to apply the principles of defundability to a much broader range of government spending. Locally, provincially and nationally, Canadian governments annually spend upwards of $900 billion. The opportunities are immense. The real problem is figuring out where to begin.

I don’t have a researched list of specific defundable programs or departments. But the federal Treasury Board’s 2020-21 spending estimates is an essential starting point for federal action.

One easy initial target, of course, would be the CBC, which this year is set to receive $1.2 billion from Ottawa to promote deep political correctness and progressive orthodoxies. Instead of paying the CBC to act as Canada’s Pravda and enforcer of truth, funds could be diverted into less-political activities.

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See Also:

(1) CERB bill: Liberals find no opposition support for moving legislation through House

(2) Reforms to RCMP, Canadian justice system coming as protests sweep world, public safety minister says (Jack: Bill Blair is a walking, talking, babbling moron. Please ignore anything he says.)

(3) Where’s the outrage at the Liberals crushing Parliamentary procedure?

(4) Extending CERB until 2021 would cost Ottawa another $57B, more than double original estimates: PBO

(5) We have failed the elderly during the COVID-19 crisis