Groups urge investigation into police force street checks

Elaine Durocher, who is Métis and has lived in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for 11 years, says it’s time for an investigation into the disproportionate rate that Indigenous people are “carded” by Vancouver police.

The last time Durocher was stopped and asked for identification from police she was walking along Hastings Street with her young granddaughter when she saw officers “harassing” someone and asked what was going on. She is part of a group of civil rights, Indigenous and black leaders calling for B.C.’s police complaints commissioner to investigate a significant racial disparity in the department’s use of carding.

During the checks, police stop a person, check their ID and record personal information.

“Poverty is not a crime, homelessness is not a crime, being a person of colour is not a crime,” Durocher said. “It’s my right as a human being to be left alone to walk these streets. It’s my right to not have police tapping me on the shoulder because of the colour of my skin.”

The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association filed a complaint Thursday based on a release of figures under a Freedom of Information request that shows 15 per cent of all carding between 2008 and 2017 was of Indigenous people, yet they make up just two per cent of the population.

The data also say four per cent of those carded were black, despite the population in Vancouver making up less than one per cent.

“It is difficult for us to imagine any conclusion other than that street checks are being conducted in a discriminatory manner here in the city of Vancouver. We are asking for an immediate independent investigation to determine what is going on and how this can be fixed,” said Josh Paterson, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

Vancouver’s chief constable, Adam Palmer, said street checks are neither random nor arbitrary.

A street check occurs when an officer encounters someone believed to be involved in criminal activity or a suspi- cious circumstance and it is not based on ethnicity, he said in a statement.

“The VPD does not control where crime falls along racial and gender lines. It is unrealistic to expect population and crime rates to be aligned,” he said.

The statement said the department will review the complaint and provide a full response with additional analysis in the coming weeks.