ABSTRACT
The year 2020 saw the most significant recent push to advance the cause of police reform in the past several decades. Although the impetus for this series of events was the death of a man in the U.S., it sparked a series of wider discussions across the globe. In Canada, the U.K., and the U.S., this was centred around calls from Black Lives Matter groups to #DefundthePolice. In Nigeria, a grassroots movement against police abuse that began in 2017 – #EndSARS – was revitalized in the fall of 2020. With the benefit of hindsight, this chapter offers the luxury of looking back to see how Canadian public policymakers responded to these demands and what changes, if any, took place in the year following protests. It also explores the impact of police reform demands and subsequent policy efforts in relation to each of the four wicked problems discussed in this book: mental health, substance misuse, homelessness, and missing persons.
