The Ben Mulroney Show - BLM Canada -- successes and missteps, a converation with its co-founder

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

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Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for sticking with us. We're about to have a tremendous conversation. Look, when I say, Black Lives Matter, very few people don't have an opinion, depending on who you are, what your lived experience is, and how you see the world. Black Lives Matter either represents a vital agent of change for a society that needed to be pulled to a better place or an agent of chaos, hell bent on upending a cart of a society that was ever evolving towards being a better and best

version of itself. You might fall somewhere in the middle as well, but those are definitely two of the polarized positions. So I'm very glad to be joined for what I know will be a wide-ranging, respectful conversation with the founder of Black Lives Matter Canada, who has also authored a new book called Defund, Black Lives, Policing and Safety for All. Please welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show, Sandy Hudson. Thanks so much for being here, Sandy. Hi, thank you for having me. I'm so glad to have you. And I want you to know this is on this show. This is a place where I genuinely want to have really. real conversation. You're not going to have somebody shouting at you. You might have

somebody disagreeing with you. But that is not going to happen on this show. Okay, let's talk a little bit. In life, everything evolves, right? If things don't evolve, they die. And Black Lives Matter has been around for a very long time. And I've got to ask, I'm so glad to have you. Talk to me about how you see the evolution of Black Lives Matter today versus when you founded it in Canada. Wow. That's a, I mean, that's a really good question. I feel like, interestingly, I would, I would kind of disagree that we've been around for a very long time. It feels like within my life, because it's been about a decade, that it hasn't, that it has been a long time. But overall, you know, when we look at other advocacy organizations, it's actually been quite a, quite a short period. I suppose it depends on, it depends on, it depends on. It depends on. who you are. Like I said, you know, 10 years in Canada living with the last government felt like an eternity. I'll give you that as an example. So it really depends, right? So yes,

everything is relative. Yeah, I think we agree on that point. So, but yeah, a lot has changed. We've been able to make some significant changes as a result of some of the advocacy that we've been doing and other groups have been doing. So I think when I look at, back to 2014, it really felt like an uphill battle to have some of the conversations that, you know, even the conversation that we're having today, it really felt like people were very resistant to talking about anti-black racism, about policing. I remember being laughed at on an interview once when I mentioned the word, the term anti-black racism, and being asked, why are you saying anti-black in front of racism?

Whereas now, those are things that wouldn't happen today. I feel like there's been a cultural shift and an understanding about needing to address issues as they are and to talk about issues with the police, which I'm sure we'll get into. Oh, yes. And so that shift has been really palpable for me. and I think that's the biggest thing is that it's been a cultural almost you know full 180 and look you know there were some real benefits that came people like myself were able to and in some cases forced to take stock and look at things through a new lens I was in television

at the time and you know this notion of representation in media was not something I'd spent too too much time on but then this you know when when I heard the expression you can't be what you can't see, it really resonated with me. And it was something that I wanted to help manifest. I think an issue that some people have is that there was, I think, a lot of grace and a lot of willingness from people from across the spectrum, across the political spectrum and cultural spectrum, to want to be part of building something better. And if BLM was going to be the tip of that sword, then we were going to get on board. But there was a moment, I think, where some of us woke up and said, hold on, people like myself are viewed as some sort of obstacle that needs

to be overcome in order to get to that better place. And, you know, I remember as clear as day after the murder of George Floyd, I had a wonderful producer at my old TV show. And the first thing she did was she handed every one of us the book, White Fragility. And I, and the, I didn't understand why someone who viewed himself as a natural ally was being put in an other category. And so I wonder, as somebody who's been part of the movement, are there any parts of the past few years where you say, you know what, maybe we could have done this differently, or maybe we could have brought these people on board more willingly or more enthusiastically? It's really interesting that that was your experience. I would say that, first of all, conversations

like this are important because it's important to hear what the experiences are and to speak through them. I would say that from my perspective, I wouldn't look at someone like yourself or anyone really, individually, as an obstacle to overcome. That's not the conceit of trying to address these issues. The obstacle is the way that our organizations and our systems, our institutions are set up, to not really pay attention to this problem and to not recognize how those problems happen. Now, I haven't read white fragility because the type of arguments in that book, I know of them, I know of them very well. I think some of them are helpful.

They're not exactly my type of approach, but what I will say is that my understanding is that that book is attempting to say what may be your knee-jerk reaction as a white person, hold off. on that and let's tackle some of the issues. And for me, that's what it's about. That's fair enough. The other piece of your question of like, are there things that you would have changed? I mean, who doesn't look back

at the things that they've done in the last five, 10 years and think about things that they would have done differently? So of course, you know, but I don't think, yeah, my experience and the activists that I work with, we've never saw it as like this this is an individual to be overcome or here's how we're going to other other people absolutely not well you know this this conversation i promise you we are absolutely going to talk about this book um but this conversation could not be happening i think at a more important time uh because the this city is still reeling from the murder

of a young black boy um javey roy on sunday he was lying in his bed and his home was torn apart by 12 bullets that ripped through the wall and ripped through his body and destroyed his life or killed him and destroyed his family. And I had on the show yesterday, a gentleman by the name of Marcel Wilson, who is an activist in the community. As a matter of fact, he had Javei as part of his earliest cohort of kids when he was just six years old. And he's a spokesperson for the Roy family. He knows them very well. He knew that we were going to be speaking with you. And he actually asked us if we could ask you a couple of questions. And he, and so if you don't mind, I'm going to read some of a couple of his questions. Maybe you can answer them for me.

He said, it would be great to ask Sandy why it is that we don't ever see or feel the presence of Black Lives Matter in the communities we work in. That's really interesting. I would say that, you know, it's interesting. A lot of Black Lives Matter activists know Jave's mother quite well and have interactions, have had interactions with Javei. And so that's been going around. So perhaps what I would say in response to that is that the black community is actually quite large and quite diverse.

And so I think perhaps if we haven't, if he hasn't seen us in the community, I mean, we are in the community and of the community, perhaps it is not attaching to where he's at but also our group is a mobilizing group and not an organizing group and that's a significant

distinction. Okay, you know what? Hold off on that. We're going to start the next segment by you telling me the distinction between those two things and then we're going to get right to defund and we're going to spend the rest of our conversation talking about this book. So Sandy, thank you so much for being here and to our listeners and to our viewers. Don't go anywhere. Much more with

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Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and thank you very much to Sandy Hudson for sticking with us. Sandy is the founder of Black Lives Matter Canada as well as the author of the new book, Defund Black Lives, Policing and Safety for All. Sandy, thank you so much. I promise we'd get to the book after you explained the difference between being an organizing group and a mobilizing group. Yeah, so I was just saying that one of the reasons that maybe he may not see us in the community, we are focused on mobilizing people to confront something that's happening in our public space, something that is paid for by our taxes, rather than organizing within the community services and programs

that support something that's going on in the community, which a lot of groups do. That being said, you know, we gave out thousands of dollars in microgrants during COVID. We gave out, we have these food justice programs where people can come and get free food and be delivered free food, which we also did during COVID. And those programs are ongoing. Because of our efforts, police were removed from the Toronto District School Board. So there's ways that people will maybe not necessarily see us, but our impact is there in the community. You know what I mean? Yes, I do.

All right, so now let's talk about the book. And I set off the very top of our conversation that just the words, Black Lives Matter or BLM, it elicits various and sometimes very polarizing and emotional responses. I don't think that there is an expression that elicits even more, one that elicits an even more response is defunding the police.

And so it can elicit a knee-jerk reaction. But in order to drill down into this book, you're asking people to take their time. and to understand something more more deeply. What do you want people to know about this thing that for so many people is an emotional flashpoint? What's the thesis? The thesis is really simple.

We spend a lot of money on policing, and unfortunately, that hasn't over the decades had the result of creating safe communities. And we do know that there are other things that we can put our resources into, that make our community safer. And so what this book is saying is like, let's take that money and put it into services

and programs that do make our community safer so that we can prevent violence and harm from happening. So give me some examples of underfunded services that if they were funded to a more reasonable level would lead to better outcomes and safer neighborhoods. You know, one that's getting a lot of, attention right now right across Canada are these emergency mental health services, right? For so long, people have been saying, you know, why is it that it's just the police we have

to call when somebody is having an emergency mental health crisis? So often, the tools that the police have can actually escalate a situation where somebody is having that type of a crisis and needs support. And that support can look like an emergency. say a removal from a particular situation, but oftentimes that support mostly looks like needing some sort of medical help. And so these new services are kind of popping up across Canada and are doing very, very well.

And we're seeing less killings from police to people who are experiencing mental health crises as a result. Yeah, I don't think you're going to find a lot of argument in the idea that the police are not necessarily the right tool for every interaction with the public. I think by and large, and if that's something that's come out of the past 10 years, I think that's a net positive. But, you know, we're living in a time where on this show, we are routinely talking about how Toronto police officers, for example, because this is where

I live, Toronto police officers are paid at such a low level. It's very hard to even keep them. We have an understaffing of the police. We don't have enough of them to reach the levels of policing that sort of we've we've deemed acceptable. Some would argue that we're not even funding the police to an acceptable level today, let alone looking at defunding it. What do you say to that? Well, I take a look at, say, the Toronto, like a quarter, a quarter of the Toronto budget needs to go to policing.

This is a problem. That's a huge problem. When we look at one of the most prevalent crimes in our community, in our society is violence against women. And quite frankly, less than a quarter of the issues that women are experiencing when it comes to violence are dealt with by police. That's a huge failure.

And then you start to think to yourself, what is it that someone who might find themselves in a domestic violence situation needs? They need the ability to escape. They need to be able to go somewhere where they will be safe that they can afford. they might need some financial support. They might need support for their children.

None of those things police can provide. And often what women find, when they're calling the police in these situations of danger, is that their situation can get worse afterwards. Because if there's not enough, for example, probable cause, the police can't take any action, or maybe the police will take action, which results in reprisal for the woman by her partner afterwards. So that's another example of something that I would fund. Our shelter system is woefully underfunded.

And a lot of these services that I mentioned don't even exist. I think, listen, I think I'm agreeing with you on so much on the fact that there are so many aspects of... I knew you would. There's so much of it I agree with. But for a mental health advocate to be able to walk into the door after a 911 call has been put forth, there has to be a cop with them. That's the law. They have to be there. And I keep going back to this story that means so much to so many of us.

Right now, the city has sort of greenlit the highest level of importance to solve the murder of this little boy, Javei Roy. And I'm trying to square. I don't want to come to a situation where the police say, well, we've reached the limit of our budget. We don't have any more money. As a matter of fact, we have less than we wanted. And so we can't continue this investment. And I've spoken with former gang members. I've spoken with advocates.

I've spoken with social justice, people within that community. And they've all said, we don't want to defund the police. But we want to do what you just said. We want to have these other grassroots organizations funded at a higher level. Look, you're not going to find me disagreeing with that. I want these grassroots organizations funded at a higher level too. But, I mean, in part what you're saying, and I really appreciate. that you're concerned for DeVay and his family and his community,

I have the same concern. The issue that I'm pointing to is that the police did not prevent that from happening. What does prevent that sort of thing from happening is these community groups, is the resources that you put into a community that help to prevent violence from happening in the first place. I don't want those things happening in our community. And part of what I'm arguing in the book is that we do not put enough time and attention into preventing violence from where it starts, and quite frankly, that it's not the job of the police. They're a reactive service. They come in after the fact. And I am saying we need to be better

for our communities in trying to tackle violence prevention and making sure that people have the services that they need. You're not going to find me disagreeing with you. I think we spent a lot of time on this show talking to, when we talk about, say, the homeless crisis in this city or or the drug crisis in the city like Toronto, unless you're going to give an off-ramp to those people who are saddled with the demons of drug abuse and drug addiction, if you don't give them the mental health resources

to help them get off of drugs, then you're not doing anything to prevent the problem or make it better. And so I think you and I are actually finding common cause. I probably... Well, you know what? I kind of knew that we would. Yeah.

Because one of the things that is really interesting is, as you say, people really have this, this, like, reaction to the, to the, when they hear the words defund, or when they hear the words, Black Lives Matter. But when you actually start to have a conversation and drill down what the arguments are, they actually are just fully rational, totally makes sense, and are helpful for our community. But if what you're saying is true, then defund is the wrong word. Defund is, is almost a misdirection because it's not about defunding the police.

It's about elevating funding for all of these other increasingly. vital resources. And I'll give you the last minute. Yeah, we only have about 10 seconds left. So I'm going to give the last 10 seconds to you. So here we go. The funding needs to come from somewhere in the city of Toronto where it's 25%. That's a huge thing.

But I will say, I don't know if we'd be talking right now if I didn't use the word defund. We'll have to agree to disagree there. Sandy Hudson, the author of Defund Black Lives, Policing and Safety for All. Thank you so much for spending time with us here. I really appreciate it. Good luck with the book. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Wednesday. We'll see you back here on Thursday. They come from Survivor. They come from Big Brother. They know what they're doing. These vets wrote the playbook, and they have all had to earn their stripes. How did you win Survivor? Manipulating people. Same thing I'm going to do here.

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