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Despite overt support for defunding the police since 2020 especially following the murder of George Floyd, funding and importance of law enforcement continues to grow. At the end of 2022, the budget increase for 2023 of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) was set at $68 million, increasing the total to $787 million. The SPVM witnessed the largest increase since 2020 in comparison to other urban police forces across Canada.
The increased allocation of funds to law enforcement is accompanied by their growing presence, evident by the debated and opposed COP15 of which $25 million was alloted to police and provide security for the event. Montreal, like other urban cities is a space for protest and resistance to a variety of social, political and economic causes, of which police presence is viewed as a form of order.
Norman Nowrocki's novel Red Squared Montreal, to be published in March, offers an alternative view about police repression by chronicling the Quebec student strike over tuition price and social unrest in 2012. A fictional account, this novel is a tell-tale of the opportunities that social organization and resistance offer for change.
Read more about the book here.
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