OPPORTUNITY FOR PROGRESS
City’s racism debate much needed
A recent public disagreement between Vancouver’s mayor and police chief reflects the broader debates playing out across Canada and beyond about police reform and racism.
Vancouver police Chief Adam Palmer didn’t mince words when he told The Vancouver Sun last week that the suggestion of systemic racism in Canadian policing is not only untrue, but “offensive.” Immediately after that, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart told The Sun, plainly: "Systemic racism exists in all of our institutions, and that includes within the Vancouver Police Department.”
Stewart didn’t directly mention Palmer or the chief ’s recent statement.
But it was noteworthy to see two of Vancouver’s civic leaders stake out very public and starkly contrasting positions on one of the most discussed issues of the moment.
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki publicly backtracked on the question last month, issuing a statement acknowledging systemic racism in the national police force, days after telling reporters she was struggling to define the term. Indeed, many Canadians might be struggling with a definition of the concept that’s suddenly the subject of many public and private discussions, and reckonings within institutions from health care to the media.
Systemic racism is usually defined as racial bias embedded within an institution or system. A recent analysis in the National Post explained: “Systemic racism is not about individual attitudes. It is about how society works. Good people can participate in systemic racism.”
But despite Lucki’s change of course, many other Canadian police leaders are digging in their heels on the issue, said former senior cop and B.C. solicitor general Kash Heed, and that doesn’t augur well for reform.
While politicians at the federal, provincial and municipal levels are talking about systemic racism in policing, “very few police leaders are,” Heed said.
“They’re not really embracing those reforms that are needed to ensure we don’t have systemic, cultural, institutionalized racism in our police departments.”
Palmer is also president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, a position that Heed thinks may have factored into his making such an assertive statement on the issue.
“You see a more realistic response from the mayor, because he’s feeling the community, and you would hope he’s expressing what he’s hearing from the community,” Heed said. “The chief of police is not. He’s out there, and whether he’s right or wrong, he’s there to defend his members and work within this confined ideology within the police leaders in Canada.”
Between Heed’s years as a young VPD cop to his time in West Van, where he became the country’s first Indo-Canadian police chief, he saw a culture of discrimination in policing, he said, experiencing several incidents of racism first-hand.
Palmer seems to enjoy the police board’s support, Heed said, exemplified by the board’s decision to back the chief ’s rejection of city council’s request in May for a one per cent reduction in the VPD budget as the city struggled with the COVID-19 pandemic’s financial impact.
Despite the mayor and chief taking opposing views on this issue, former Vancouver mayor Mike Harcourt said he isn’t aware of anything to suggest their relationship is particularly strained.
“I don’t see it as a problem, I see it as a disagreement,” Harcourt said. “It’s a healthy debate.”
Provincial leaders are discussing the issue, too. Last month, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said he and Premier John Horgan are looking to modernize B.C.’s Police Act, “with a specific focus on systemic racism.”
“I think it’s an issue we should be addressing,” said Harcourt, also a former B.C. NDP premier. “I agree with the premier, I agree with Mike Farnworth, I agree with Kennedy. And it’s not that there’s a massive disagreement with Adam, but it’s got to be looked at.”
Palmer’s comment elicited several strong responses, both on social media and in this reporter’s inbox. Police union officials and retired cops praised the chief, while some community members were frustrated that he seemed to minimize their own lived experiences.
Lama Mugabo is one Vancouverite who was disappointed, he said, to see Palmer “bury his head in the sand.”
To some extent it shows a disconnect between the way police view themselves and what much of society sees, said Mugabo, a community planner and director of the Hogan’s Alley Society, a non-profit group promoting the history and well-being of Vancouver’s Black population.
While Mugabo noted the VPD’s “commendable” history of taking more progressive positions on social issues than some other police departments, he said, bias permeates Canadian systems from health care to education to journalism, and policing isn’t exempt.
Mugabo has been pulled over and stopped by Vancouver police for no discernible reason other than “driving while Black,” he said. “Every Black person has.”
Racism is “a reality for us,” said Mugabo. “We live with it.”
Still, Mugabo said, the current moment represents a “huge” opportunity for progress.
“I’m very optimistic. What we’re witnessing now is a tipping point ... We don’t want any more cosmetic change here and there, I think we need radical change,” said Mugabo. “But there’s a lot of work to be done.”