Thread by @youseepeeYYC

.@TaylorMadeYYC’s protest in front of the courthouse isn’t getting the attention it deserves. Racism & police brutality are real problems here.

& she’s absolutely right that @cityofcalgary lacks the services required to deal with poverty.

#DoneWithDunnYYC
#DefundThePolice

https://twitter.com/TaylorMadeYYC/status/1423074440032579587

I wwas able to visit the courthouse yesterday to help hold signs. I try to be a good ally, but there’s still a lot of things that I’m a bit ignorant about. Thanks for taking the time to educate me about some of that stuff, @TaylorMadeYYC.

If you’re wondering what the courthouse protest is about;

Dalia Kafi, the woman who was assaulted by on-duty Calgary police officer Const. Alex Dunn in 2017, died in late June, just a few days before Dunn’s sentencing.

Dunn was not fired. #yyc

globalnews.ca/news/7991917/c…

What happened to Dalia isn’t as uncommon as it should be.

“the deeper we got, the more obvious it became that the Calgary Police Service, and Alberta more broadly, were very much deserving of our attention,”

Policing here has problems.

thestar.com/news/canada/20…

And, as @TaylorMadeYYC points out in her thread, there’s a big problem with homelessness here too.

“In 2019, more than 4,200 people slept in a #Calgary homeless shelter for the first time in their lives,”

#DefundThePolice #yyc

globalnews.ca/news/7687094/c…

Wait, you're thinking, that feels like a jump. What does policing have to do with homelessness?

They're more intertwined than many people realize.

In Calgary, at 14.36% policing is the single most expensive line item in the budget. Affordable housing gets 0.48% of the budget.

Calgary maintains a bloated police budget that costs almost as much as all transportation infrastructure—roads, public transit, the C-Train, bike paths, all of it—combined. And spend barely a nickel on affordable housing.

Then the unhoused get harassed by cops. #DefundThePolice

And we have a mayoral candidate that is promising to do something about these problems. Not by increasing social spending, or housing the poor, but spending EVEN MORE on policing.

What services do you think he’ll cut to do that?

#DefundthePolice #yyccc

Seriously, the police have money the fly a helicopter over my head in the ‘burbs every other day, but #Calgary can’t afford to house the unhoused?

Bull. shit. 💩

Some councillors spend more time trying to keep the ctrain from reaching the airport than dealing with poverty.

In 2008, @cityofcalgary gave itself ten years to eliminate homelessness, yet homelessness and poverty persist.

They made some progress, but why did they fail to truly achieve this goal?

This article doesn't answer that, but does offer some background.

cbc.ca/news/canada/ca…

If you look up homeless shelter locations on a map, most are located in and around Calgary's Central Business District.

Most of these shelters are privately run non-profits. Many of them, like Salvation Army & (the Nixon's) Mustard Seed, are religious.

#yyc #yyccc

Many of the shelters are very popular with very successful and undertaxed businesses.

Names like TC Energy, PCL, Telus, RBC, Westjet and others should be familiar to you if you pay attention to the dealings of the #UCP.

web.archive.org/web/2021080503…🔗

Many of these same companies also back Conservative politicians and policies (like tax cuts) through organizations like the Alberta Enterprise Group, which I've explored before.

Tax cuts = service cuts.
Philanthropy = image laundering.

🧵
👇

https://twitter.com/youseepeeYYC/status/1340409590299516928?s=20

Anyway, why did Calgary's ambition to end homelessness fail?

"The annual CPS operating budget totals about $400 million." 14.36% of the total budget for the city.

0.48% was spent on affordable housing.
Or about $13.4M.

Spending indicated priorities.

calgaryherald.com/news/local-new…

If I was to guess, I'd say that one major flaw in the plan to end homelessness is that the solution was placed in the hands of private institutions, many of which pushed religion.

Read: "Why Don't Homeless People Use Shelters?"

soapboxie.com/social-issues/…🔗

Another priority the city had was to commit to spending about $99,622.12 for each of #Calgary's homeless people on building a stadium Billionaire N. Murray Edwards' hockey team.

The existence of homelessness is a choice. [Thread]

🧵
👇

https://twitter.com/youseepeeYYC/status/1362252615526936578?s=20

Meanwhile, as mentioned earlier, the bloated police force in Calgary have a huge problem police brutality.

The targets of that brutality are often racial minority groups who have been historically exploited by the capitalist class.

🧵
👇

https://twitter.com/youseepeeYYC/status/1384690643809669121?s=20

Look, I’m not an expert on racism, or policing, or tax avoidance, or lobbying, or healthcare or anything else.

In my activism I try to connect one problem to another to show how they intersect in a bigger picture.

We must #DefundThePolice & #TaxTheRich to fund social programs.

I mean, @cityofcalgary won't even provide public bathrooms to people.

"Hofer was arrested for failing to pay a $300 public urination ticket. He couldn’t find a bathroom and businesses refused him entry because he “looked homeless.”

via @sprawlalberta

sprawlalberta.com/calgary-public…

...but CPS gets a $400M budget?

"Because systems of oppression—including policing and prisons—are so deeply entangled with one another, understanding the historical context is paramount."

via @sprawlalberta

We have to #DefundThePolice.

sprawlalberta.com/defunding-calg…

And for crying out loud, Dalia Kafi deserves justice!

"Dalia wasn't the same after she was assaulted by [Cst. Alex Dunn] in 2017."

If I did what Dunn did, I'd be in jail - 4 a while!

At a *minimum* he must be fired.

#DoneWithDunnYYC
#DefundThePolice

calgary.ctvnews.ca/we-still-haven…

That's the thread.

I hope this helped to connect the way we prioritize spending on homelessness, policing, & social programs in a way that makes sense.

Thanks to @TaylorMadeYYC for taking time to talk with me, & for keeping pressure on the CPS to do the right thing. #BLM ✊

I finished my thread on homelessness and policing and there’s already a police chopper circling my neighbourhood again.
Go away!

“Two new HAWC helicopters cost the city $5.5 million each last year,”

#DefundThePolice
sprawlalberta.com/inside-calgary…