Q&A with Knia Singh on carding as Ontario public consultations begin

The Ontario government begins on Friday the first of five public meetings on police carding, the controversial practice of stopping, questioning and collecting information from residents who aren’t under arrest.

The public consultations are part of the province’s efforts to review and legislate street checks.

But Toronto law student and activist Knia Singh said he’s worried the conversation has already gotten off on the wrong foot. The Police Association of Ontario, which supports carding, released a survey a day earlier that suggested 40 per cent of Ontarians supported carding when specific cases were cited.

Singh and other critics say carding is an excuse for police to target and harass black and First Nations people.

In June, Singh filed a court challenge to the use of carding by the Toronto Police Service under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The following is an edited transcript of a conversation between Yahoo News and Singh.

How many times have you been stopped and carded?

More than 30 times, but every interaction that I’ve had is not recorded in the system. There’s officially 10 concrete carding incidents that are listed in their database. Two of them state that I was born in Jamaica, but I was born in Toronto. One of them states I have a possible immigration warrant. Three of them state I’m not friendly to police and uncooperative.

For me, as an innocent civilian walking down the street, if police punch in my name for whatever reason they’re seeing: rude to police, not police-friendly, possible immigration warrant, born in Jamaica. My safety is totally at risk. These things create an unsafe environment for me and plenty of other people.

How has the practice of carding changed your relationship with the police?

Any time you see a police officer your heart races and you feel like you’ve done something wrong. You just want to avoid them. You know you’re in for a bad time. And really our response to police officers should be feeling safe, feeling secure, knowing someone is there if we need them. For the African-Canadian and, I think, First Nations communities, that’s not the experience when we see police.

The effects of that mistrust turn so that when there is crime in the area, the last person any community member would want to talk to would be the police. The police, when they’re dealing with the community, it feels like more of an object and police officer, as opposed to human-to-human interaction. The humanity is taken out of it when you’re seen as just a statistic.

Some see carding as a useful tool in fighting crime, and suggest that police should perform random stops to address problems in high-crime areas. Do you think there’s a practical purpose to carding?

Every time I’ve been carded, I’ve never been targeted in a high-crime area.

Yes, they do go into those areas and they do card a lot of people there, but they card people anywhere and everywhere. And that is the problem. If the police were only targeting those areas, the conversation would be difference. When you constantly card one or two segments of the population, you’re going to see a lot more statistics from that group. That’s one of the main reasons why you see African-Canadians and First Nations disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system.

Toronto’s police force has become more diverse over the years, more reflective of the city’s demographics. New Toronto police chief Mark Saunders is the first black officer to lead the force. Does having officers from different communities help to address some of the issues you’ve identified?

The representation and diversity on the force has improved the situation and made things better, but it doesn’t eliminate it. It’s more about a culture. I’ve been profiled by a black officer and it was one of the worst experiences I’ve had. Diversity improves the situation, but the culture is what has to change. Police, at the high levels, have to hold officers accountable who violate those rules of human rights and discrimination and racial profiling.

Are you pleased that the Ontario government is taking a closer look at carding? Do you have faith in the process?

I’m glad that it’s happening and I think it’s the right step on paper. I’m hopeful that it will be productive, but past practice over the past two years dealing with this type of thing, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be. It seems like they listen to people show that they’re listening, but the decisions have already been made.
It seems almost like a formality.

That they’re discussing this as “street checks” and even discussing whether this should be a legal practice or not is really the main problem. We’re discussing something that is arbitrary detention, that is a violation of our Section 9 Charter rights. We should not be having a discussion at a government level whether an illegal practice should continue. If the question is redefined we could have a proper, fruitful discussion.

What can the authorities do to fix the issues around carding?

The first step is fixing legislation and that can help dictate the culture. Right now, the police are still claiming that it’s vague even though we have Supreme Court decisions, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and laws that are supposed to prevent this. The fact that the police are still doing it and there’s a discussion around it makes it vague. If the province regulates it, that forces the police to be held accountable, which will slowly start changing police culture.

We’re moving towards something positive but the resistance from the police is not a good thing. The police should be able to encourage progress the same way society has. We’re moving past racism, even though it’s systemic and still remains in certain places, and the police are one of the most important institutions that can help change that around.