Niggers Hate Carding Because it's "Racist"

[W.Anthony]

"It's got to go." "Ban it altogether." "We need to stop carding."

In consultation meetings now being held across the province on the controversial police practice of carding, the ministry has been getting answers to a question it has not been asking.

While Ontarians are being surveyed about the fine-grain aspects of street checks, better known as carding — Should there be limits on the information collected? What type of training should police officers receive about carding? Where should the data go? — some critics are saying the real question is absent: Should 'street checks' be banned altogether?

Niggers play the Race Card to stop Carding

Carding, the police practice of stopping, questioning and documenting someone not suspected of a crime, has drawn mounting concerns about Charter violations and racial profiling. A series of Star investigations has shown carding disproportionately affects black and brown men.

Anyone stopped by police in a non-criminal investigation has the right to walk away. However, as noted in a 2009 Supreme Court ruling, visible minorities "may, because of their background and experience, feel especially unable to disregard police directions and feel that assertion of their right to walk away will itself be taken as evasive."

In June, Premier Kathleen Wynne's government announced plans to regulate the practice, launching a consultation process involving online feedback and meetings province-wide.

Some critics have pointed to what they consider the fundamental flaw in the Liberal government's action on carding: Why try to fix a practice that should be tossed?

"Carding and street checks are a Charter of Rights violation; you cannot regulate a Charter violation," said Toronto lawyer Howard Morton, an outspoken opponent of the practice and legal counsel for a new anti-street checks group in Peel.

Yasir Naqvi, minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, has defended the province's review, saying it is guided by "two very important overarching principles.

"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 (personal) information."

In advance of Toronto's consultation on Tuesday, a look at three concerns raised by critics about the province's street checks review and responses from the ministry and police associations.

The definition of "street checks" is too broad

In an online form the ministry calls its "discussion document," street checks are defined as a tool police use "to engage and record interactions with individuals whose activities and/or presence within their broader context (e.g., location, time, behaviour, etc.) seem out of the ordinary."

But Knia Singh — who has launched a Charter challenge against police carding and says he has been stopped by police 30 times — says the ministry's definition is does not capture the reality of street checks, which involve arbitrary detentions.

The majority of community members who are concerned about carding are not opposed to police having the ability to stop and question people for a legitimate investigative purpose.

"What we've always been fighting is the non-criminal investigation of people," Singh said. "What they're missing is the whole point of people just walking on the street, standing on the corner or minding their own business are getting stopped."

"If they are going to use the word 'street check,' they have to define it correctly," Singh said. "Then we can have a discussion."

Jonathan Rose, spokesperson for Naqvi's ministry, said it's in the process of updating the content of its street-check document online "to reflect the feedback that we have heard from our public consultation and online channels," though he did not specify what changes were being made.

"We intend to make these changes to the web page content in the coming days," Rose said in an email.

It misses the root problem of racial discrimination

In a lengthy submission to the ministry, the Ontario Human Rights Commission states its central concern with the street checks review is that it does not go far enough to address the "systemic issue" underlying the overrepresentation of racialized people in street-check interactions.

Ruth Goba, the OHRC's interim chief commissioner, says the ministry does not go far enough to define when it is appropriate to perform street checks.

The OHRC challenges the suggestion that police may perform street checks when individuals' activities "seem out of the ordinary." That is just simply too broad, Goba says — and unguided officer discretion to initiate street checks is "fertile ground for racial profiling," the OHRC writes.

Also, the larger issue "of racial profiling is not explicitly mentioned," Goba says, "and that is a significant gap given how the issue has manifested itself."

Rose said Naqvi has made it clear the government "takes the protection of human rights very seriously and that we have zero tolerance for racism or marginalization."

It is taken for granted that street checks solve crime

In its description of street checks, the province describes the practice as "a necessary and valuable tool for police" that helps solve and prevent crime.

Chris Williams, an outspoken carding opponent and member of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, says stating carding's usefulness as fact is problematic. Numerous groups, including TPAC, the Law Union of Ontario and the OHRC have argued there is a dearth of objective evidence supporting the claim that street checks solve crime.

Police forces and associations across Ontario often cite the importance street checks can play in solving crime; Toronto Police Association

that because it would show the value of carding in solving crimes.

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