Random or arbitrary police carding will stop, province says
Decision receives praise but final details are still not known.
Thestar.com
Oct. 23, 2015
By San Grewal, Jim Rankin and Patty Winsa
Random and arbitrary carding by police forces across Ontario will be illegal by the end of fall.
Yasir Naqvi, minister of community safety and correctional services, made the announcement during a debate Thursday where MPPs from across the province spoke out against carding. At the time they were considering a private member’s motion from an NDP MPP to ban random and arbitrary carding, also known as street checks.
“It’s a historic day,” said Margaret Parsons, executive director of the African-Canadian Legal Clinic, who watched the debate in the legislature.
“This is a monumental shift in our province,” said Parsons, who has worked to end carding. She repeatedly paused to compose herself when talking to the Star outside the legislature.
“We have been around for 21 years. We have been fighting on this issue since the day our doors opened, in July 1994.”
Earlier in the legislature, Naqvi moved quickly during debate to address the motion from NDP MPP and deputy party leader Jagmeet Singh.
“We as a government stand opposed, Speaker, to any arbitrary, random stops by the police simply to collect information when there are no grounds or reason to do so,” Naqvi said. “We have heard from the community that street checks, by definition, are arbitrary as well as discriminatory and therefore cannot be regulated; they must simply be ended. The province agrees that these types of stops must end.”
Asked later, outside the legislature, if Premier Kathleen Wynne, who was not at Thursday’s debate on the issue, supports the ban of carding and random street checks, Naqvi emphatically said, “What we’re doing is our government’s position under the leadership of premier Kathleen Wynne.”
Naqvi, who at the beginning of the summer began a provincewide consultation to bring in new regulations for carding and street checks, has come under fire for trying to regulate a practice that critics believe is unconstitutional and must end.
Spokespersons for two Ontario police forces downplayed the impact of Naqvi’s statement. “Nothing that the minister has said clashes with what Chief (Mark) Saunders has said,” said Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash.
Staff Sgt. Dan Richardson of Peel police said that “Chief (Jennifer) Evans has never supported the random or arbitrary stopping and collection of information from our citizens” but that street checks are valuable under five circumstances defined by Peel police.
Progressive Conservative member Randy Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington) called the Liberal government’s public consultations, led by Naqvi, a “facade.” He was one of eight MPPs who said inside the legislature that the practice must end. Many described how carding has devastated members of their communities and led to a breakdown of relations between racialized groups and police forces.
Asked outside the legislature to confirm that his government will end the practice, Naqvi said, “Absolutely. It’s unacceptable and we will put an end to it.” He said regulation banning random street checks will be in place by the end of the fall, will become part of the Police Services Act, which governs Ontario’s police forces, and will include:
Stronger guidelines for police who conduct street checks as part of an investigation or because of suspicious activity.
Rules guaranteeing that charter rights are protected for anyone who is checked.
Clear rules on how police can collect carding data, use the data, as well as the length of time the data can be stored. During provincial consultations people said one of their biggest concerns was having no idea how their personal information was being used by police and how long it was being kept.
Carding is a practice that involves officers stopping citizens and storing their details in a police database. Data shows that in Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton and London, black individuals are more than three times as likely to be carded than whites. The data also shows that other visible minorities are disproportionately stopped.
Anyone who is being carded can legally walk away from police.
But critics argue the practice violates Charter rights that protect against unlawful search and seizure and detention, as well as provisions of the Ontario Human Rights Code. Singh, who says he has been carded by police, represents a riding in Brampton and singled out Peel’s Evans when he read out his motion in the Legislature.
“In my region, Peel Region, the Peel police services board met ... and voted to suspend the practice of street checks in the Region of Peel. (That vote) was championed by two of the mayors of two of the largest cities in our province (Mississauga’s Bonnie Crombie and Brampton’s Linda Jeffrey).”
“Chief Evans said, ‘No.’ ”
At the time, Evans provided six examples of crimes that were solved with help from street-check data, but admitted her force has “no system” to prove the practice works. Data shows that between 2009 and 2014, Peel police conducted 159,303 street checks and black people were three times more likely to be stopped than whites.
Singh said that if police boards are powerless and police chiefs refuse to listen to their citizens, “the province has to take action.”
Toronto police long resisted its board’s calls for action on carding, until former chief Bill Blair suspended the practice in January. Toronto Mayor John Tory, who sits on the city’s police board, defended the practice but when faced by public outrage in June reversed his position and said it had to go.
Naqvi was asked what will happen if police forces do not comply with the ban or the other regulations his government will bring in.