Black Legal Action Centre & Canadian Civil Liberties Association speak out against Toronto Police Services; “YOU MUST DO BETTER!”

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“The data released today — like the data released by the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 2020 and 2018, or the data released by the Toronto Star in 2012, or the numerous studies released before that – again confirms what Black people have known for decades. The police target Black people for arrest, for detention, for strip searches, for assault.”
Abby Deshman
(Director of Criminal Justice for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association)

Toronto is in desperate need of advocates of justice both inside and outside the systems and institutions that play an integral role in the lives of African-Caribbean across the city. We need active members who are willing to break down barriers that preclude our full participation in society, and who are willing to focus on working with our community and others with the goal of educating, empowering through knowledge and changing attitudes and behaviours that contribute to anti-Black racism.

Thankfully, we have two organizations that are out here doing just that: Black Legal Action Centre and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. I received a message that was deeply concerning, but to be honest not surprising. Most recently, Toronto Police Services released a report, and it shares the disturbing experiences of discrimination, harassment, and trauma at the hands of police and the criminal justice system.

African-Caribbeans, Indigenous, and other racialized individuals in Canada experience racial profiling and disproportionately harsh treatment by police and the criminal system including higher rates of use of force. There is data clearly evidencing systemic racism for years. In 2018, the Ontario Human Rights Commission documented the systemic racism in Toronto policing, reporting that although Black people made up 8.9% of Toronto’s population, they accounted over a third of police shootings, 61.5% of police use of force cases that resulted in civilian death, and 70% of police shootings that resulted in civilian death.

The report gave even more confirmation of what is already known. The data released raised a number of questions. What will governments do to make the victims of continued police misconduct whole? How will they remedy their continued trauma, degradation, and humiliation? How will they ensure that they have true access to justice?

Moya Teku, Executive Director of the Black Legal Action Centre, made the following statement:

“The police continue to fail to fulfil their purported mandate. They continue to fail to serve and protect Black people, and yet, year after year, all levels of government continue to pour money into police services. They do this instead of funding Black communities. 

The solution is not to provide the police with more money for body scanners, or training. It is to de-task the police and to redirect funding into those services that will actually protect and serve and increase the public safety of Black people. The police have shown that they are not up to the task.”

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Special Advisor on Anti-Black Racism for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, also spoke to what the report said:

“Some may find these findings shocking, but this is absolutely not news. Communities have been speaking out for decades. This year marks the 20-year anniversary of the Toronto Star’s first race and crime series. Ten years ago I demonstrated how police services across Canada were actively shielding the race-based data they did collect from the public.

Throughout this time the police have continued to paint community concern around these issues as anecdotal while actively suppressing the very data that they released today, and although they have now been forced to release this information, it still only provides a small window into the ways that Black and other racialized communities are disproportionately impacted by police actions.” 

What has been established is that the current race-based data strategy is inadequate. It needs to be vastly expanded and expedited. It is time to stop giving the police a pass, and demand that they start acting in the interests of the communities they claim to serve.

Police need to step back, and make room for social service supports and civilian led crisis interventions. We need government at all levels to listen and take action, turning those conversations into a reality. It is time that we support organizations who speak out for us, especially during times when we are unable to speak for ourselves. Visit Black Legal Action Centre at https://www.blacklegalactioncentre.ca/, and Canadian Civil Liberties Association at https://ccla.org/