Councillor Survey Question 8

Rockford Rutledge:

I don’t believe in defunding the police, although they need to be held more accountable. We have the highest paid police force and more police per capita in the province. They is little we can do as they are part of a union, but reviewing their budget against their benefit should be scrutinized. Addressing injustices needs to communicated to the police commission with clear plan of action.

Robert Dumanowski:

I absolutely and unequivocally do not support any defunding of police - period.

Shila Sharps:

I don’t believe we should defund the police. And I am up supporter of BLM:) What I do believe is that we need to ensure that the training of our current one is super force is exhaustive and it’s updated with different perspectives. I’ve asked various officers Regarding their training and it seems to be that they focus annually on their firearms oh but I’m not sure we have any racial sensitivity training or understanding. I believe getting back to the community-based policing model will really help the interaction regardless of colour.

Justin Wright:

Absolutely not. I believe the city and police are already working to address these concerns in many ways with partnering with stakeholders.

Brad Gruszie:

We should absolutely NOT be defunding police. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do there is always a bad apple that makes things sour for the whole group. We can give more training to officers that walk that line but people sometimes make bad decisions in the spur of the moment and it doesn’t matter how much training they have, they can still make a mistake.

Immanuel Moritz:

The police service in Medicine Hat has done some excellent work in the past year dealing with people in crisis (self harm or harming others), incidents that were resolved, no one hurt, and with individuals receiving mental health support. In other jurisdictions they may have ended badly. By and large, the MHPS does a great job for the citizens. Is it perfect? We can always be better.