Ontario aims to end institutional racism
On March 22, 2016, the Government of Ontario’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services ruled in favor of banning carding and street checks by police officers. The ruling will limit the police’s controversial collection of personal information at the provincial level.
In a March 22 press release, the Government of Ontario recognized carding as an “arbitrary and race-based collection of identifying information” and vowed to lay the groundwork for the police’s non-discriminatory interactions with the public.
The provincial government worked with the public in a series of meetings last fall in Ottawa, Brampton, Thunder Bay, London, and Toronto. Over the course of two consultation stages, the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services received over 500 submissions from organizations and the public.
“Our regulation reflects the public input we received from Ontarians, and our work with civil liberties, human rights, policing, legal, and community partners, as well as ethnic and cultural groups,” said Yasir Naqvi, minister of community safety and correctional services.
Categorized and filed under the Police Services Act, the new regulation details that certain kinds of information collection is now against the law—namely, carding due to race, except when the officer is searching for a suspect of the same race and has reasonable suspicion that goes beyond this one detail. In addition, the officer cannot collect an individual’s information before informing them why the request has been made. Officers must also state that individuals are not required to provide any information.
However, these rules can be broken in the case that informing the individual could harm someone or compromise an ongoing investigation.
Notably, an officer must now record the reason for their stopping an individual. To that end, the chief of police—or someone appointed by the chief of police—has to review the personal information within 30 days of it being collected, to ensure that it was collected in the correct way. Once personal information is in the database, it cannot be accessed by anyone without permission from the chief of police.
Along with these new regulations, the government has committed to designating a third party to work in conjunction with the newly-formed Anti-Racism Directorate to assess its application. Along with this assessment is the promise to continually improve the language in the Police Services Act in order to ensure its interpretation. Now that the rules are in place, it’s a question of consistency.
“These important changes will help strengthen public accountability and foster increased public trust in police, which is essential for building a stronger, safer Ontario,” said minister Naqvi, in the same March 22 news release.
According to the Government of Ontario’s press release, the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services will put together a committee, called a “training advisory roundtable” which will be “comprised of policing, civil liberties, human rights, and youth experts.” In a nutshell, their purpose will be to ensure that racism is not (or does not continue to be) systemic within the training curriculum offered at the college.