Constance Chlore then said "The reason I'm pushing on this is because for the last five years all across North America, people have breathlessly repeated the claim that crime or disorder has gone up because we defunded the police, a thing that
literally did not happen." However, it can be argued that defunding the police was linked to an uptick in crime - there are various reasons for crime increasing but it cannot be denied that defunding the police could be one of the factors. The subsequent increases to the police budget are good to see but doesn't change the fact that a left leaning city council slashed the police budget when several indicators of crime were on the upswing. I'm not sure why this is so controversial - after the George Floyd incident in the USA many city governments chose to jump on the progressive soupe de jour which was "defund the police" and the Edmonton city council did this as well. They apparently realized their mistake and did a quick correction - which was the pragmatic thing to do.
