Police board delays anti-racism meeting

Postponement will be used to give public more input on priorities

WENDY GILLIS CRIME REPORTER

The Toronto Police Services Board is postponing its discussion of recommendations to address growing demand for policing reform, saying more time is needed for broader public consultation.

The civilian board had been set to discuss a report by board chair Jim Hart at its scheduled Friday meeting.

Earlier this week, that report, which made a series of recommendations including new anti-racism training for officers and the expansion of the service’s mental health crisis teams, was criticized as offering “baby steps” in response to mounting calls for systemic change.

In a statement late Thursday afternoon, the board said it is postponing that discussion after receiving calls from members of the public asking for the opportunity to consult on recommendations to the board.

“The board is listening to the public and thanks all of the individuals who have made their voices heard on these issues,” reads the statement.

Instead, the board said it will arrange for a forum “to hear directly from the public on issues related to police accountability, reform, and community safety priorities.”

This public consultation, which will occur early next month, will then “inform any recommendations the board ultimately brings forward.”

A special board meeting the discuss the recommendations will then be held in August.

The board statement also noted it will be helpful to await the outcome of a Toronto city council meeting later this month that is expected to debate a motion to reduce the police budget by 10 per cent, a cut of about $122 million in spending from the current $1.22-billion total.

In Hart’s report, released Wednesday, he acknowledged the recommendations were not a “panacea,” but said they were “concrete steps that can be taken in the immediate while additional work is undertaken to examine these issues thoughtfully.”

But the recommendations — which included greater transparency around the public budget and more public consultation around police spending — were criticized as being too incremental.

One of the recommendations was that a temporary advisory panel on anti-racism — which was created in the wake of the Toronto police fatal shooting of mentally ill Black man Andrew Loku — be made permanent. But Notisha Massaquoi, cochair of the police board’s antiracism advisory panel, said the panel had not been consulted on the recommendation, making the proposed changes look “more like a (public relations) issue.”

Thursday’s statement from the board said it would be seeking input from its advisory panels to “help inform any recommendations the Board ultimately brings forward.”

In recent weeks, thousands of protestors have marched in the streets following the police-involved deaths of Black and Indigenous people.

That includes the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-yearold Afro-Indigenous woman who fell from her 24th-floor balcony in the presence of Toronto police last month.

Her mother says her daughter was in mental health distress; police say they were attending an assault call involving knives. The death is currently under investigation by the Special Investigations Unit.

In his report to the board Wednesday, Hart said recent protests are “a clear reminder that we can and must work together to improve the social fabric that holds us together.”

“No institution or organization, including the Toronto Police Service, is immune from overt and implicit bias.

Racism — including antiBlack and anti-Indigenous racism — exists within our public and other institutions,” he wrote, saying the only way to dismantle it is to confront it “and dedicate ourselves to action that puts us clearly on the path to change.”