There’s also a 2025 email from then-VicPD chief Manak to the special advisor. He listed many complaints, including that the board invited the Human Rights Commissioner and Policing-Free Schools to give presentations. He said “I don’t see a productive path forward with Nicole Duncan as Board Chair.”

Oak Bay PD has a policy on the books that hasn’t been updated since 2005, which says it’s okay to interview students at school without notifying parents. What? (SD61’s regulation disagrees).

Other records: Saanich PD says they don’t have an SLO policy, or reports about their activities. Their SLOs’ biggest two activities in the 2025/26 school year were “Other” and “Relationship building,” neither of which are defined. I recall a lack of documentation was one of the trustees’ complaints.

The board said yesterday they had an issue with their YouTube account, hence no live stream. They've now posted the stream here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_aF...

Four board members have been reappointed. Kituri until the end of the year, Sukhdeo and Thorkelsson until June 2028, and Cull until May 2029.

Agenda notes they’re moving “wage contingency” budgeting to individual divisions instead of a central pool, and that it was a reallocation of $4.84 million to reflect “most 2025 wage settlements.”

There’s a #yyj police board meeting at 5:00 pm. VicPD’s OT has cost $355,000 more than they planned for the first half of the year ($3M so far; should’ve been $2.6M). Will follow along here. Agenda: www.vicpd.ca/Police%20Boa... Stream: www.youtube.com/@victoriaesq... #vicpdboard 🧵

Elsewhere on the agenda, Chief Constable Fiona Wilson stealing democratic socialist valour as “C.C. F. Wilson.” Unlike the B.C. CCF, which advocated for compassion clubs, VicPD raids them. Wilson will talk about tracking drugs. Any drug seizure is a bad news story that will lead to more overdoses.

VicPD talks about crime rates, even though there’s no link between police spending and crime rates. They also talk about how often they police mental health and poverty, which should be a clear call for fewer resources for police and more resources for real community safety measures (e.g., housing).

There’s a #yyj police board meeting at 5:00 pm. The board is voting on whether to appeal Victoria’s decision to only let them hire 24 new officers this year instead of 26. Will follow along here. Agenda: www.vicpd.ca/Police%20Boa... Stream: www.youtube.com/@victoriaesq... #vicpdboard 🧵

Looks like a VPD-branded missile launcher.

VicPD’s draft appeal also plays on how often they police mental health and poverty. The current Victoria council is incredibly friendly to police and policing. Last year they made a special request for 9 of these new officers, which will cost about $1.4 million a year in perpetuity.

There’s a VicPD police board meeting next Tuesday. The big item on the agenda: the police board is voting on whether to appeal Victoria’s decision to only let them hire 24 new officers this year instead of 26. www.vicpd.ca/Police%20Boa... #yyj 🧵

In my April post, I wrote about the potential that VicPD’s LLM use would limit accountability. VicPD’s new FOI response says staff can delete their logs, which are only ever accessible to those individuals. So even if an officer uses VicPD’s internal LLM for advice, there may be no record anywhere.

VicPD is also getting it to proofread things for ‘neutrality’ and typos. In the second example here, an officer asked the LLM to proofread two sentences. Which did include a typo. And they’re using it to review things like this social media post from April 15th.

VicPD asked the LLM to proofread a “Nijmegen Contingent Request” and add a conclusion. Possibly to send VicPD officers to the “Nijmegen Marches” in the Netherlands. An expensive trip, with the conclusion of why it’s needed ceded to an LLM, to influence decision makers. www.canada.ca/en/departmen...

VicPD are also using it to draft emails. Here the LLM talks about an option that “emphasizes the broader community impact.” Letting software decide what “community impact” means doesn’t sound like a public good to me. The LLM’s response is redacted as advice and personal information.

The VicPD officer carried on, asking the LLM to come up with language about police outreach and “Peelian principles” about ‘ethical policing.’ Sure, why not leave that to a computer program. [there is no ethical policing, to be clear]

The LLM had a hard time with the request, but told the officer it can’t have a stroke. Uh huh. I’m including this one because you can see the sycophantic LLM nonsense on display here, which would also be present in the redacted responses about policing, with the potential for harmful feedback loops.

For policy, here an officer asked for a “structure” for slides to present to police recruits about VicPD’s Co-Response Team, SLOs, MYST, etc. The LLM churned out four pages, seemingly more than a “structure.” The officer wanted more, and fed it some information about Community Resource Officers.

You can’t tell what personal info VicPD is feeding its LLM, but this prompt for a draft letter was redacted as personal info. In a follow-up, they said “there is NO pressure and that he can absolutely refuse, or if she doesn’t feel it’s appropriate she doesn’t even have to present it to him.” Okay.

VicPD used excessive redaction in this FOI, but it hints at how officers are using the LLM. In 59 pages, I counted 22 redactions as something that would “harm a law enforcement matter,” 135 for policy advice, and 92 for personal info (a lot of personal info). The redactions are often entire pages.

Here someone with VicPD seemingly prods the LLM for legal advice. VicPD redacted the question, saying disclosure would “harm a law enforcement matter.” They prompted it with questions redacted for the same reason three times in a row. The LLM gave five pages of answers, redacted as policy advice.

This was also a bit infuriating, with the deputy chief saying "Our survey proved there was no issue with racialized students" and SLOs. This survey? (SNIWWOC letter)

GVTA posted the late disclosure emails/texts re: SD61. Here's one. Province tells independent advisor a report was FOI'd. Fine. He then asks if they can tell him who filed the FOI, and an ED says if they find out more, they'll let him know. I'm sure nothing came of it, but come on now. www.gvta.net

An individual police officer stationed in schools is different than the current SD61 SLO program. But it's worth noting that when SD61 did a survey, dozens of respondents reported “negative” or “very negative” past interactions with SLOs, including students. Excerpts from a past SNIWWOC letter.

B.C.'s FOI law, and VicPD's remarkable shift to even less transparency within that system, mean an FOI-based story like this would be basically impossible here now. Just a few years ago, though, you could see that schools were calling police on kids under 10. www.needsmorespikes.com/other/2021/1...

Last month the board signed off on reports dismissing former board member Paul Schachter’s complaints about systemic issues in VicPD. They only recommended one thing, to “consider” more disclosure training. So officers don’t wind up misleading “the Crown, defence and the Justices” again, perhaps?

Here’s a table of all of VicPD’s reserves. They ended 2025 with $12.6 million in their reserves. More details on pages 13-14 of the agenda. A million dollars of that is unspent grant money, but it generally seems like a lot of money to just sit with the police. www.vicpd.ca/Police%20Boa...

VicPD is signalling that it will probably want more capital spending on police vehicles in 2027. They overspent by $53,000 in 2025, because they say costs increased. Do you get to buy things when you didn’t budget for them? Evidently yes, but they’ll ask for more money next year.