Thousands of British Columbians have called for police and RCMP officers in the province to start wearing body cameras.
An online petition has received more than 23,000 signatures to date after it was created nearly a week ago.
According to the petition, West Kelowna resident, Melanie Banman, wants Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth to make body cameras a requirement for members of the BC RCMP.
“Currently, events in the United States are demonstrating why body cameras are so important,” the petition’s description reads.
“While there is less documentation of racially-motivated police incidents in Canada, they occur all the time.”
In 2019, the provincial government pitched the use of body-worn cameras, but many organizations turned down the idea because of the cost of the devices.
On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he will push premiers to equip all Canadian police with body-worn cameras, to hold officers accountable after allegations of racism and police brutality.
These cameras would document police officers’ interactions with the public, and the Prime Minister says that they are one relatively simple way to address complaints against police in Canada.
He added that he has raised the issue with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki in a call on Monday, and will pursue it with the provincial premiers later this week.
This announcement was made in response to several recent incidents in Canada, including allegations of police brutality from a First Nations Chief in Alberta.
More recently, a 26-year-old Indigenous woman from British Columbia was shot dead by police in Edmundston, New Brunswick, after they were called to check on her well-being.
Canada-wide rallies, including several in Victoria, have followed the massive American protests sparked by the video showing former Minneapolis PD officer Derek Chauvin killing an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, by kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes.
Though Trudeau is currently pushing RCMP, municipal and provincial police forces to use the body cameras, the RCMP rejected body-worn cameras in 2016 after they claimed that testing revealed technical problems.
