We have had a reckoning in 2020 about how our communities are policed. Black and Indigenous Canadians are over-represented in prisons and as police targets, and it is time we do something to address this issue that is life and death for so many.

 

An NDP government will implement community oversight of the RCMP, a police force that has been found to act with impunity, negatively and disproportionately impacting Indigenous communities.

 

In addition, the NDP is committed to promoting public health policies over policies that criminalize behaviour such as drug use. For instance, we have committed to confronting the opioid public health emergency by recognizing that it is a public health emergency, and by ending the criminalization and stigma associated with drug addiction.

 

These kinds of policies are necessary for confronting the opioid public health emergency, and are also an important step in working towards a society that relies more on government support and public health programs, and less on policing and criminalization.