Carding amounts to racial profiling, activists say
Data reveals ‘disturbing trend’
Activists who dug up data showing a disproportionate number of indigenous women and black people among those “carded” by Edmonton police say it’s time for Alberta to ban the controversial practice.
Outside Edmonton police headquarters on 103A Avenue on Tuesday, representatives of Black Lives Matter and the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women said carding — where an officer stops a person without having the grounds to arrest or detain him or her — amounts to racial profiling.
The data “revealed a disturbing trend that showed black, indigenous and Middle Eastern Edmontonians are unfairly targeted by street checks,” said Bashir Mohamed, who obtained five years’ worth of race-based street check statistics through a freedom of information request.
He said the province should end carding by next year.
Rachelle Venne, institute CEO, called the over-representation of indigenous women among carding stops “alarming.”
“We believe carding for no reason does not build relationships, rather the contrary — it reinforces the attitude that aboriginal women are not worthy of the human rights most Canadians enjoy,” she said.
Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley said she has heard from a number of community groups about the unequal distribution of street checks, and called the numbers “troubling.”
Black Lives Matter found black Edmontonians were three to five times more likely to be stopped
It reinforces the attitude that aboriginal women are not worthy of the human rights most Canadians enjoy.
than white people. Indigenous people were four times more likely to be stopped than whites, while indigenous women were carded at nine times the rate of white women.
The Edmonton Police Service said street checks are aimed at “preventing, intervening and suppressing crime, and to further investigations.”
Officers are conducting fewer street checks since a 2015 review, Staff Sgt. Warren Driechel said Monday. He added certain groups may be over-represented because of the large deployment of foot patrol officers downtown.
Mohamed, 22, said he has been carded before, but said the practice does not make anyone safer.
“All that carding accomplishes is putting people in the system, and it further leads to that stigma between communities and the police,” he said.
While he supports communitybased policing, carding is not it.
“If police want to engage the community, there are other ways to do it rather than collecting someone’s information,” he said. “There was one officer growing up — he knew where we hung out, he knew where we played basketball, and he tried to know us. I think that kind of policing is lacking in the city of Edmonton.”
Ganley’s ministry established a working group with representatives from Alberta’s police services back in February 2016, but it has yet to form a policy.