Random or arbitrary police carding will stop, province says
2015/10/24 Leave a comment
As always, the devil is in the details, but the direction is clear:
Random and arbitrary carding by police forces across Ontario will be illegal by the end of fall.
Yasir Naqvi, minister of community safety and correctional services, made the announcement during a debate Thursday where MPPs from across the province spoke out against carding. At the time they were considering a private member’s motion from an NDP MPP to ban random and arbitrary carding, also known as street checks.
“It’s a historic day,” said Margaret Parsons, executive director of the African-Canadian Legal Clinic, who watched the debate in the legislature.
“This is a monumental shift in our province,” said Parsons, who has worked to end carding. She repeatedly paused to compose herself when talking to the Star outside the legislature.
“We have been around for 21 years. We have been fighting on this issue since the day our doors opened, in July 1994.”
Earlier in the legislature, Naqvi moved quickly during debate to address the motion from NDP MPP and deputy party leader Jagmeet Singh.
“We as a government stand opposed, Speaker, to any arbitrary, random stops by the police simply to collect information when there are no grounds or reason to do so,” Naqvi said. “We have heard from the community that street checks, by definition, are arbitrary as well as discriminatory and therefore cannot be regulated; they must simply be ended. The province agrees that these types of stops must end.”
Asked later, outside the legislature, if Premier Kathleen Wynne, who was not at Thursday’s debate on the issue, supports the ban of carding and random street checks, Naqvi emphatically said, “What we’re doing is our government’s position under the leadership of premier Kathleen Wynne.”
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