October
8, 2003
Joint
Working Group
Board/Service
Race Relations
40
College Street
Toronto,
Ontario M5G 2J3
Dear
Sirs/Madams:
RE: Race Relations Draft Report
We
are in receipt of the Joint Working Group's Draft Report on Race Relations and
have reviewed same. Please accept the
following as Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto's (ALST) written submissions,
to be read with our oral presentation, with respect to the proposed draft
recommendations.
Introduction
Aboriginal
Legal Services of Toronto is a multi-service, legal agency serving Canada's
largest urban Aboriginal population. The vision of ALST is to support and
advocate for the Aboriginal community to gain control over justice issues that
affect them. Policing has been, and
continues to be, an important issue that affects our community.
There
are two main areas of concern with the Draft Report that we would like to
address:
1)
The
police complaint process; and
2)
The
gathering of statistics.
Wampum Belt
Before
addressing these two main areas, we would like to point out that a Wampum Belt
was provided to Chief McCormack in 1993 by the Aboriginal community at the
opening ceremonies of the Aboriginal Peacekeeping Unit. The Wampum Belt symbolizes the Toronto
Police and the Aboriginal community's commitment and agreement to work together
as equal partners. It is interesting to
note that the Aboriginal Peacekeeping Unit (APU) no longer exists within the
Toronto Police, as it was dismantled, without notice, or consultation with the
Aboriginal Community. Given that the
Unit no longer exists, the report marked as Section F to the Policing A
World Within a City report can be disregarded in its entirety. Any progress
that the Toronto Police may have made in improving relations with the
Aboriginal Community have been erased with the dismantling of the APU. ALST believes that the Toronto Police
Service should no longer be in possession of the Wampum Belt as it has broken
its agreement with our community.
The
Aboriginal community has been, and continues to be, both over-policed and
under-policed. Community members continue to be stopped, harassed and in some
instances physically abused by Toronto Police Officers for no reason other than
for being Aboriginal. In addition to
the over-policing of our community, victims continue to receive poor or no
police service. Aboriginal victims
continue to be regarded by the Toronto police as "less worthy
victims". The Draft Report speaks
to the importance of effective, respectful, two-way communication between police
authorities and their communities. When
14 Toronto Aboriginal agencies signed and forwarded a letter to Chief Fantino
in September 2002 to request a meeting to discuss our concerns relating to the
over and under-policing of our community, Chief Fantino disrespectfully ignored
us.
It
is no secret that the justice system has failed Aboriginal people in Canada,
this has been well documented in several reports and studies. ALST submits that the Toronto Police have
played, and continue to play, a major role in this failure. To resolve the issues with our community
the Toronto Police must first acknowledge that there is a problem and that they
have played a role in creating the problem.
Only then, once there is such an acknowledgment, can we move forward to
mend the relationship between the police and the Aboriginal community.
Complaint Process
ALST
would like to address Recommendation # 4 which deals with access to the
complaint process. ALST has, for the
past 10 years, assisted community members with filing complaints against police
officers. In the past 10 years, not one
complaint has been found by the Toronto Police to be valid. The issue of accessibility to the complaint
process is an important issue. However,
it will not matter how accessible you make the process, as it will never be
seen as legitimate as long as police continue to be the primary and initial
investigators of complaints. There is
sufficient, in fact substantial, empirical evidence, to show that communities
do not have confidence in an oversight body that is not independent of the
police. Without independence, the
entire police complaint process lacks credibility in the community. ALST therefore respectfully recommends that
Recommendation # 4 be more broad and mirror the recommendation made by the City
Auditor; that the Board initiate discussions with the Attorney General on the
issue of police policing themselves. Within those discussions, the issue of
third party complaints can be addressed.
ALST, as it has said to the Board in the past, supports the inclusion of
third party complaints. With all due respect to the Joint Working group, the
findings at page 30 of the Draft Report that 1)"in practice all
allegations of misconduct are thoroughly investigated, regardless of how they
come to the attention of the Service" and 2) that the Chief of Police, has
a duty to investigate, even if a complaint is made by a third party, are in
practice, false. A third party
complaining to the Chief of Police is either ignored completely, or told that
the Police Services Act does not
allow for the complaint to be investigated.
If ALST is wrong on this, we recommend that information be included in
the report as to the number of third party complaints that the Chief of Police
has thoroughly investigated. Without this supporting data, the community will
not place any credibility in the assertion that all complaints are in fact
investigated thoroughly.
Term "Racially Biased
Policing" v "Racial Profiling"
ALST
supports the use of the proposed broader term of "racially biased
policing" as opposed to "racial profiling". The term "racial profiling" has
been interpreted by many members of our community to apply only to the black community,
even though racial profiling, by definition, is an issue for our
community. Although ALST supports the
use of the proposed broader term, we note that the term does not encompass
other areas of biased policing that exist.
For example, the term excludes inappropriate policing based on other
social dimensions such as poverty, homelessness, and gender.
Raced-based Statistics
The
Aboriginal community in Canada has been counted, recounted, studied and
restudied since prior to the passing of the first Indian Act in 1876. The
practice of counting Indians was primarily done so the government could assess
how to adequately deal with the Indian problem and accelerate the process of
assimilation. Given this history,
Aboriginal people do not always welcome the concept of being counted. Notwithstanding this fact, ALST supports the
collection of race-based statistics in policing. However, the manner in which the information is collected, used,
and interpreted MUST be in the control of the community. The Draft Report was alarming to read, as it
completely ignores community perspectives and portrays the issue of collecting
raced-based statistics as a police issue only.
All of the rationalizations set out against collecting race-based data,
are police focussed and dismiss community views and treat communities as
outsiders to the process rather than as partners to the process.
The
Draft Report further fails to acknowledge the diversity of communities and the
diversity of the issues affecting communities.
For example, the Report is heavily focussed on traffic stops. Traffic stops are not the issue in our
community. It is the frequent and
unwarranted contact that police have with our community members when they are
walking in public spaces that is our issue.
All too often Aboriginal people are stopped, asked to show identification,
forced to explain where they are going and where they have been. Such stops, in our submission, are racially
motivated. The Royal Commission on
Aboriginal People quoting Professor Tim Quigley identified over-policing as one
of the sources of systemic discrimination and noted that "Police use race
as an indicator for patrols, for arrests, detentions…For instance, police in
cities tend to patrol bars and streets where Aboriginal people congregate,
rather than the private clubs frequented by white business people…" The Royal Commission also noted that
"police tend to view the world in terms of "respectable" people
and "criminal types". Criminal
types are thought to exhibit certain characteristics which provide cues to the
officer to initiate action. Thus, the police may tend to stop a higher
proportion of people who are visibly different from the dominant society,
including Aboriginal people…"
ALST
supports the collection of race-based statistics if the community maintains
ownership over the process. Race-based
statistics have proven to be extremely useful to our community. For example, they have been used to identify
gaps in services, to improve access to institutions, to educate the dominant
society on Aboriginal people and to assist with improving resources available
to our community. We see further
benefit arising from the gathering of statistics. For example, there is very little data on the issue of Aboriginal
victimization. The limited data that
does exist indicates that Aboriginal people are more likely to be victims of
crime than non-Aboriginal people.
Statistics on the victimization of Aboriginal people will assist our
community with finding a solution to the problem. Each community has their own issues relating to crime and victimization
and police stops. The Draft Report must
acknowledge this and ensure that the debate is not simply presented as a police
debate, and a police issue.
ALST
recommends that the Draft Report include a recommendation that the issue of
gathering race based statistics be reviewed by the Toronto Police, in
partnership with the communities that it serves.
Recruitment
The
Draft Report contains some discussion on recruiting police officers from
diverse communities. With all due
respect to the Task Force, the Toronto Police will continue to have difficulty
recruiting Aboriginal people to its force if it continues to police the
Aboriginal community as it has. Targeting Aboriginal people at younger ages,
producing recruitment videos that target Aboriginal people and sending
Aboriginal officers to do the recruitment will not solve the problem. Aboriginal people continue to grow up
mistrusting the police. This mistrust
will not, and cannot be overcome until the Toronto Police change the manner in
which they do business with our community.
The issue of over-policing and under-policing must be addressed and can
be addressed with the assistance of race-based statistics and an independent,
accountable, police complaint oversight body.
Yours
truly,
ABORIGINAL LEGAL SERVICES OF
TORONTO-LEGAL CLINIC
Kimberly
R. Murray
Director