Toronto city councillors who voted against defunding police face vandalism, online backlash

Toronto residents pushed back on city councillors who voted last week against defunding the city police budget by 10 percent. The sixteen dissenters are now facing backlash in the form of angry correspondence and slander pasted to office windows.

Among them, Councillor Ana Bailão found “I Am Oppressing My Neighbour” taped to the front of her constituency office. The “OPP” was painted in red to reference the Ontario Provincial Police.

Others expressed their discontent with phone calls and social media rants. One unsettled resident said she spent an hour calling all of the Toronto councillors who opposed Councillor Josh Matlow’s defund-the-police motion.

While the Toronto Police Services already has an Anti-Racism Advisory Panel to reform law enforcement internally, disgruntled locals still called for the reduction of Toronto’s $1.2 billion police budget to be re-allocated towards “community-based” alternatives to policing.

A constituent who was disappointed in Councillor Jennifer McKelvie’s opposition had urged others to email their councillors, saying reform wasn’t enough.

Police Chief Mark Saunders, who is stepping down at the end of this month, said at last week’s virtual council meeting that he does not support “arbitrary cuts” to the police force’s budget, according to The Epoch Times.

"If something is put in place that enhances community safety, I would definitely consider that,” Saunders said. “But I certainly as the police chief would like to see what it was to see that it meets or exceeds the standard of where it is present day.”

This all comes after Toronto had witnessed a series of marches, sit-ins, and other demonstrations following the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a young Afro-Indigenous woman who fatally fell from a High Park balcony while police occupied her unit on a mental health dispatch call.

And just last month, reactionary groups painted “Defund the Police” in front of TPS headquarters.