Police board OK’s revised carding rules
‘Crucial restrictions’ on officers’ behaviour eased while critics see shattering of public confidence
In a high-stakes move, the Toronto Police Services Board has passed a revised community engagement policy Thursday, rushing through a document before Chief Bill Blair leaves at the end of the month, without the “progressive” citizen safeguards first sought by the board a year ago.
“We will remember this,” Anthony Morgan, a lawyer with the African Canadian Legal Clinic told the board. Morgan was one of the many speakers who urged the board not to pass the policy at a board meeting at police headquarters.
Some legal experts and activists are wondering why the board risked a public backlash by watering down the original policy.
Blair has cited operational concerns as the reason he refused for nearly a year to write procedures until the restrictive limits to carding in the policy were removed.
The board’s inability to motivate Blair has led to a complaint by lawyer Vilko Zbogar, a member of the progressive Law Union of Ontario, asking the Ontario Civilian Police Commission to investigate the board’s conduct, claiming that its members abdicated their responsibilities as civilian overseers.
The letter to the commission says the board’s capitulation “after years of community consultation, has shattered public confidence in the Board and has discredited and compromised the integrity of the Board.
“Fundamentally, what is at issue here is the integrity of the system of civilian oversight of police,” wrote Zbogar.
“Fundamentally, what is at issue here is the integrity of the system of civilian oversight of police.” VILKO ZBOGAR LAW UNION OF ONTARIO
The carding policy — it’s referred to as community engagement — could now face a judicial review in court, a threat made by the Law Union of Ontario this week, as well as an inquiry by the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC).
Ruth Goba, interim chief commissioner of the OHRC, posted a video Wednesday on YouTube warning that the commission would use its “full range of powers” to stop carding. Board member Mayor John Tory said after the vote that he chose to support the revised policy because it was the only way forward after an eight-month stalemate.
“That policy could not (be), and was not, operationalized. Communication was diminishing, attitudes were hardening on all sides,” said Tory, although he says any suggestions that Blair was insubordinate were unfounded.
But the revised policy passed by the board Thursday is missing “crucial restrictions” that were contained in the original, critics say.
Gone are restrictive clauses that said police could only card individuals when they are investigating specific offences or protecting a person; and that officers had to inform individuals of their right to leave, which is the case in non-criminal encounters.
Instead, Blair says his new proce- dures, which weren’t in evidence at the board meeting, instruct his officers to tell people why they are being stopped if the person asks. Police will also tell a person they are free to go if the person asks.
Officers will be required to hand out a business card to acknowledge the interaction, but not a full receipt, which the board first ordered in 2012. At the time, officers just stopped carding because they were worried the receipts were an invitation for complaints.
The original policy “would have set a gold standard,” said Noa Mendelsohn Aviv of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who noted that even though it basically required police to comply with existing laws that there was nothing like it in Canada. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was something we could work with.”
Tory promised a “quick, independent and very complete review” of the policy later this year, with assurance from the board that the policy and procedures will change if a problem is identified.
The board’s decision ignored the advice of at least 10 Toronto city council members, who signed an open letter Thursday requesting the board members reintroduce language from the original policy.
“We, the undersigned Toronto City Councillors, strongly disagree with the proposed modified community engagement, or carding, policy being brought before the Board today.”