BAD-C Statement On Mayor John Tory’s Reversal Of His Position On Carding

On Sunday, June 7, beleaguered Toronto Mayor, John Tory, reversed his support for police racial profiling and carding.

While this turn of events is akin to Saul’s Damascus road conversion, as he was in the very act of persecuting Christ’s followers, or a death bed repentance.

It is the escalation of pressure moving the issue from the Police Services Board, to Queens Park, and the Premier’s statement that racial and religious discrimination will not be tolerated anywhere in Ontario, and the behind the scenes pressure from various sources.

Let’s examine the Mayors role in creating the quagmire that now engulfs him.

The previous Police Services Board approved a policy that significantly curtailed the use of the practice, and required police to provide a receipt giving reasons for them stopping citizens, and where there was no reasonable or probable grounds, to believe that an individual was involved in a criminal offence, had knowledge of a specific crime nor was planning to commit a crime, the police were required to inform the individual that they could refuse to answer questions and walk away.

This became a sticking point with Police Chief Bill Blair who refused to implement the policy for a full year.

After the October election, Mayor John Tory removed Deputy Police Services Board Chair, Michael Thompson, from the Police Services Board stating, that he did not “want a city that was too controversial or too much fun”.

When he assumed his seat on the Board, he publicly humiliated Dr. Alok Mukherjee, the Chair of the Board. He then sided with his fishing buddy, Chief Bill Blair, and Andy Pringle to scrap the policy, which the Black Action Defense Committee (BAD-C) and a host of other advocacy groups and individuals had fought for.

The Police Services Board under Mayor Tory’s direction voted to delegate the Policy making responsibility to the Police Chief. He bowed to pressure from the Chief Bill Blair and the Police Association, and installed a new chief that is adamant about continuing the practice of carding.

We welcome his statement below by Mayor John Tory and applaud him on the courage to do the right thing, but it is too early to celebrate, this is only one round of the fight.

We are cautiously optimistic, that this game changing announcement is a positive development.  However, the devil could lie in the details, so we need to see the details of the implementation plan and see it working.

Nevertheless, we are encouraged to hear that the issue bothered his conscience for some time. That is a good thing, it ought to, after ignoring the impassioned plea of Desmond Cole, Knia Singh, Valarie Steele, Howard Morton and the Law union, former Mayor John Sewell of the Police Accountability Coalition, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Barbara Hall of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, veteran criminal and human rights lawyer, Peter Rosenthal, and many others, including BAD-C.

“It is my intention to see carding cancelled, permanently, and that we start fresh,” Tory told reporters at a news conference on Sunday.

Tory said, he intends to go before Toronto’s police board on June 18 and call for the practice to be eliminated.

“I believe our police can do their jobs and keep the city safe, through stronger relationships with the communities they serve. But carding won’t get us there,” Tory said.

We applaud him on doing the right thing. It will pull Toronto back from the brink.

 

Kingsley Gilliam,

Director, BAD-C