Appeal court overturns racial profiling case involving customs officer

The Government’s favourite non-Supreme Court judge (Supreme Court rejects Harper appointee Marc Nadon) delivers a ruling likely in line with the Government on racial profiling:

Writing for the panel, Justice Nadon said there was no evidence of racial profiling.

“The officer simply asserted in his statement that in his experience it was not uncommon for Chinese persons to bring agricultural products with them upon returning from China. The officer’s hunch, based on his experience and his observance of the respondent’s demeanour, was confirmed by the secondary examination.”

It was “totally devoid of merit,” he said, to find that the officer had engaged in racial profiling.

The decision represents an important development in the law that surrounds racial profiling since the Federal Court of Appeal is among the nation’s highest.

The country’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Canada, has yet to hear a case that speaks directly to the issue.In Canada, racial profiling has been defined by a number of criminal cases in which defendants have sought to exclude evidence obtained by what they contend were racially motivated pedestrian stops or car searches. The courts have defined racial profiling as “the targeting of individual members of a particular racial group on the basis of the supposed criminal propensity of the entire group.”

There’s a chicken-and-egg quality to the debate. Police officers have argued that their actions are informed by years of on-the-street experience, while minority groups maintain that experience has been built on old, discriminatory attitudes.

The issue is also alive at Canadian airports where Muslim passengers have often complained of being singled out for interviews and inspection in the years since 9/11. Last year, a fine imposed against Youssef Bougachouch for illegally importing meat was thrown out after a tribunal found that he was among a group of Arab passengers targeted based on their race at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

Appeal court overturns racial profiling case involving customs officer | Ottawa Citizen.