Canadians don't need to look to Ferguson to find racial elements in policing

As Canadians watched events unfold in Ferguson, Mo., Monday night, some might have been thinking, “thank goodness that can’t happen here.”

Authorities across the U.S. had braced themselves for race riots unseen since the Rodney King verdict, and with sad predictability, some in Ferguson reacted to the grand jury’s decision not to indict a city cop for killing a young black man with looting and burning.

But Canadians have nothing to be smug about. While it hasn’t had to deal with anything like the effects slavery, America’s “original sin,” it has not been immune from systemic discrimination against minorities, including blacks and especially First Nations people.

Aboriginal Canadians, who make up less than 10 per cent of the population, are over-represented in the country’s prisons and are more likely to be accused of crimes than non-aboriginals, according to Statistics Canada data.

First Nations people often have been discounted crime victims, too. That’s at the heart of demands for a national public inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women and the core of the fatally-flawed hunt for the serial killer Robert Pickton, who preyed on women, many of them aboriginal, on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

“This is what came out of our inquiry, that there was a disconnect between the vulnerable communities of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and the police,” says former B.C. attorney general Wally Oppal, who headed the public inquiry into how the case was handled.

Oppal, a former judge on B.C.’s Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, sees his findings as a continuation of his extensive 1994 report looking into B.C. policing, which resulted in several reforms and also identified discriminatory police practices when it came to aboriginal communities.

Relations between First Nations and police are still a work in progress, Cameron Alexis, regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), told Yahoo Canada News.

[ Related: Ferguson: Lessons for Canada from a police debacle ]

Aboriginals find themselves stopped unnecessarily, said Alexis, who oversees the AFN’s justice portfolio. For instance, in his native Alberta, First Nations drivers have been pulled over because they have an eagle feather dangling from the rear-view mirror and told to remove it or face a ticket.

“The significance of the medicine bundles and the eagle feathers is safety and to keep passengers safe while driving,” he said. “It’s spiritual peace.

“Those kinds of things, as an example, are not warranted and that’s why cultural sensitivity is important.”

Dragging feet on First Nations self-policing

Urban police forces and the RCMP are doing a better job of recruiting aboriginals to serve in their forces, Alexis said, but the federal government has dragged its feet after then-public safety minister Vic Toews renewed an agreement for First Nations police services last year.

Despite his predecessor’s commitment, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney has not opened discussions on a policing program that First Nations see as crucial, Alexis said.

“A lot of First Nations desire their own self-administered police services because it’s culturally sensitive and meets the needs of the communities,” said Alexis.

The situation in Ferguson only underscores the need to have police who are in touch with their communities, he added.

“I think these are crucial pieces in my view, in light of what’s going on stateside,” said Alexis.

[ Related: Quebec aboriginal police forces disband as contracts expire ]

Most police forces don’t collect information on race, except about aboriginals, but black activists in Canada long have complained their communities are disproportionately targeted.

Canada has also had its share of incidents where police have killed black people under questionable circumstances. One of the most infamous recent cases involved the shooting of Montreal teenager Fredy Villanueva after police pulled into a parking lot to question several men playing dice.

The officer who shot the 18-year-old Honduran immigrant claimed he feared for his life after Villanueva came to the defence of his older brother. No chargers were laid. The officer told a subsequent inquiry he feared for his life and that Villaneuva may have been trying to grab his gun.

The inquiry’s report concluded the officers were in no danger.

The shooting triggered a riot, and the tense relationship between minorities and police features prominently in an annual anti-police march in Montreal that sometimes ends in clouds of tear gas.

Relations between Montreal police and visible minorities haven’t improved much since the Villaneuva shooting, said Fo Niemi, executive director of Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations.

“Every week we still get complaints from black individuals, both French-speaking and English-speaking, about problems with the police,” he said in an interview.

Niemi pointed to a recent incident in which a speeding Quebec provincial police car in a Montreal suburb crashed into a turning vehicle driven by a Haitian-Canadian, killing his five-year-old son.

The subsequent investigation by an outside police force ruled out charges and the Crown suggested the father was to blame for not waiting for a priority turn light at the intersection, even though the light was green. The conclusion caused an uproar and some members of Montreal’s black community saw it as an instance of discrimination.

“The perception is when it comes to black individuals, there’s no concern, respect and care for black safety or life,” he said. “This is the fallout of some of the coverage seen in the United States.”

Quebec Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée this week ordered a review of the case by an independent panel.

Montrealers of colour targeted more, says critic

Montrealers of colour – black, Latino and Middle Eastern – are also more likely to receive tickets for bylaw infractions under the city’s incivility policy, which targets things like talking too loud and jaywalking, Niemi said.

“Some studies have shown the number of fines are disproportionate towards young males of colour, mostly black and Latino males,” he said, pointing to an internal police report leaked to the media four years ago.

The ticketing is a way for police to keep track of people, said Niemi, not unlike Toronto police’s much-criticized “carding” strategy.

A Toronto Star investigation found that officers were much more likely to stop people of colour and ask for their personal information, even if they’re not investigating a specific crime, than they would a white person.

The practice has declined but not disappeared since the revelation. The Ontario Human Rights Commission, in a submission to the Toronto Police Services Board last April, said it’s just one symptom of a wider problem.

“Racial profiling is systemic; it encompasses more than ‘carding’ and affects many communities,” the commission said. ”A police stop may amount to racial profiling whether or not personal information is recorded.

"Although reports indicate that the Toronto Police Service has reduced carding by 90 per cent, this does not necessarily mean that racial profiling has also declined."

So, as B.C.’s Wally Oppal said, while Canada does not have the deeply ingrained societal dysfunction manifested in Ferguson, there is work to be done.