Needing to clarify is the least of the problems with the slogan. Why aren't the "defund the police" people up in arms over lockdown measures? Over half of Canada's country's population lives in what is effectively a police state, with curfews and stay-at-home orders legally in effect in Quebec and Ontario. Who do you think that's going to impact? Why isn't there any challenge to that?
Except for a few localized cuts to police agencies in specific cities, I don't think the "defund the police" movement had much in the way of a victory. I actually believe the opposite, in that cities could find it easy to pass larger budgets for police militarization in the future. Remember the social unrest that happend last year? That frightens people. It's going to become even harder to manage as the impacts of climate change and income inequality become far more acute. So with all this chaos, it's very easy to imagine larger police budgets being passed on the idea that the solution to social unrest is to crack down very hard, especially since the interests that benefit from police protection have more clout, power, money, and organization than the people who would be hurt by it.
