Brampton residents push to end street checks

Reforming ‘carding’ won’t eliminate racial profiling, meeting attenders tell community safety minister.

Thestar.com
Aug. 25, 2015
By San Grewal

A Brampton crowd told the minister responsible for an ongoing provincial review of police street checks, known in Toronto as carding, that he was sending a mixed message on the issue.

"We think that street checks have to go," said Brampton resident Patti Ann Trainor, rising from her seat in a filled recreation centre where Yasir Naqvi, minister of community safety and correctional services, hosted the second of five public meetings being held across the province this summer to address the widely condemned practice of police street checks.

Naqvi told the Star what he had already stated in front of the roughly 100 people in attendance: "We have laid down two very important over-arching principles upon which we are operating: One, there's zero tolerance for any kind of racial profiling or discrimination; and two, that we as government stand opposed to any arbitrary or random police stops that take place without cause ... simply to obtain information."

But Peel residents gathered at the meeting repeatedly said that the practice of carding, or street checks, does exactly what Naqvi said his government would not allow, and questioned why the government is calling for regulation instead of an outright ban.

Data obtained by the Star shows Peel Regional Police conducted 159,303 street checks over a six-year period.

"Six months ago, I was walking along a cycling track," said Brampton resident Anthony Williams.

"A police officer asked me for my information, she said, ‘Just to have a record that I spoke to you, can I have your name, address, phone number.'" Williams said he didn't think about it and cooperated.

"Now, I realize it was excessive. I don't know how long the police will keep my data."

Brampton MPP Jagmeet Singh, the Ontario NDP deputy leader who in June called for an outright ban of carding and street checks, was also in attendance and pointed out what he believes is a contradiction by the Liberal government.

"What (Naqvi) has laid out - he's right, there should be no profiling and it shouldn't be arbitrary - but street checks and carding inherently involve both of these. By its nature the practice is based on racial profiling, and it's arbitrary."

Naqvi, who had earlier introduced Singh as his Queen's Park colleague, responded to that comment by saying: "He's entitled to his position."

Naqvi announced in June that the Liberal government will bring in a uniform provincial policy on street checks and carding, considered by many legal experts to be the same thing.

The provincial review and promised new rules could be rendered moot if a Charter challenge to carding by Toronto resident Knia Singh is successful.

Singh, in an application to the Divisional Court, alleges the practice violates sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that protect against unreasonable search and seizure and unlawful detention.

Naqvi said any new rules could be amended to accommodate the court's decision.

Trainor said she has first-hand experience with the impact of street checks.

"I'm raising three black children. They've all been profiled by the police, in Peel, London, Toronto. Street checks have got to go. It's against our Charter rights."