Toronto ‘carding’ activist Desmond Cole stopped by Vancouver police

VANCOUVER — A Toronto activist and writer who was stopped by Vancouver police a day after arriving in the city says his experience reveals what daily life is like for black and Indigenous residents. Desmond Cole has worked for years to end street checks or “carding” in Toronto and says he was the subject of a street check by a Vancouver police officer on Tuesday.

Street checks involve officers stopping a person and recording their information, regardless of whether an offence has been committed. Opponents say street checks disproportionately target people of colour.

“I get to leave Vancouver this weekend, but people have to live here every day. That’s what I really want people to sit with,” said Cole in an interview Wednesday.

“If this is what happened to me, what is everyday life like for vulnerable residents in the city of Vancouver and in this province? That’s the question people have to ask themselves.”

Vancouver police data shows that 16 per cent of street checks last year were of Indigenous people, who make up two per cent of the population. Another five per cent of street checks involved black people, who make up one per cent of the population.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs have filed a complaint with the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner calling for an independent review of the practice. Police in the city conducted an internal review and released a report that says there was “no statistical basis” to conclude officers use the checks to discriminate against certain races.

Cole is visiting Vancouver to deliver a speech on racial inequality at a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives fundraiser. After the interaction with police on Tuesday afternoon, he posted a video of himself discussing the incident on Twitter. In the video, he said he was smoking a cigarette on a sidewalk near Stanley Park when a police cruiser passed, pulled a U-turn and stopped next to him. The officer told him he was breaking a bylaw against smoking in parks, Cole said. Cole said he replied that he was not in a park and wasn’t from the city. He refused the officer’s repeated requests to give his name or show identification. He said the officer threatened to arrest him.