Councillor Deagle Gammon listened to
discussion to be bettered informed
FALL RIVER/BEAVER BANK: The councillor for Middle/Upper Sackville-Lucasville-Beaver Bank explained why she voted to approve the $2 million funding request from Halifax Regional Police.
Lisa Blackburn is one of the members of HRM Regional Council’s Board of Police Commissioners. They were recently presented with the HRP budget for the coming year, and that saw a request to increase their budget at a time when there are calls to defund the police.
“Most of the debate took place in open session but unfortunately, when we asked the chief about specific numbers on members who are out sick, long-term disability, that sort of thing because it involves personnel, we had to go and address that in camera,” said Blackburn. “For me, the deciding factor was, once I got those numbers and realized how depleted the staff is and how there’s a steady rise in the number of short-term long term disability claims.
“That was the deciding factor for me that they did need more boots on-the-ground in order to accomplish what they need to accomplish now.”
While the budget increase was approved at the Board of Police Commissioners, it now goes to Regional Council for approval. However, she has a gut feeling it’ll be back to the Board of Commissioners for tweaking.
“Regional Council could very well send it back. They have done it in the past. I’ve been on councils that have sent it back,” she said. “They may demand that the Board of Police Commissioners take a million dollars off that budget, two million.
“I don’t know where it will land, but to be honest I’ll be very surprised if it just passes at Regional Council without being sent back to the Board of Police Commissioners.”
Blackburn agrees with online sentiment that approving the funding request seems to contradict what the Defund the Police report says HRM should do.
“This seems to completely fly in the face of everything that we’re working towards with the release of the Defund report,” she said. “My position is that without a solid plan in place you just can’t go slashing budgets for the sake of slashing budgets. That has real world consequences.
She said at the next Board of Police Commissioners meeting she would be moving a motion that will strike a subcommittee made up of Board of Police commissioners.
“We’ll sit-down and look at all 37 recommendations from that report and we’ll come to an agreement on which level of government, which order of government the responsibility for that recommendation will lie because all the recommendations that were presented to us, not all of them, are things that the Board of police Commissioners can accomplish,” said Blackburn.
“Some of them will require regional council, some will require the province.”
Waverley-Fall River-Musquodoboit Valley councillor Cathy Deagle Gammon was also asked about her take as an outside councillor who’s not a part of the Board of Police Commissioners.
“I made it a point to listen to the conversation because they are able to have such fulsome conversation at the Board of Police commissioners. This is a huge ask that’s coming before regional Council, so the more information that I can have, the better when it comes to making that decision.”
Deagle Gammon said she would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during the one-hour plus in camera session that the Commissioners held.
“I’m sure that at regional council we may have to go in camera again so that gap in my knowledge will be filled and that will help make a determination on how I vote at regional council,”
She concurred that adding $2million is a big ask.
“I’ve read the Defund the Police report almost three times now and I do know that to make a transition of this nature, you have to invest in that transition,” said Deagle Gammon. “Sometimes you spend money to save money.
“I’m keeping an open mind in terms of what it is that we need to fix and what is it going to cost to fix it.”
