The Toronto Police Services Board unanimously voted to reinstate a reformed and stricter carding policy at its Thursday, June 18th meeting. However, the Ontario government intends to weigh in with its own province wide regulations this fall. In the meantime, we sent off a comment to the MCSCS minister ahead of that Toronto Police board meeting:-
June 18, 2015

The Honourable Yasir Naqvi,
Minister of Community Safety & Correctional Services,
18th Floor,
George Drew Building, 25 Grosvenor Street,
Toronto, ON M7A 1Y6

Re: Carding

Dear Minister Naqvi:

The Toronto Police Service seems to have painted itself into a corner on the carding issue, but it is very adept at wriggling out of tight spots.

Of course, our police officers should be talking to people. Absolutely.

Nonetheless, no person is required under any circumstance, for any reason, or in any situation to speak to the police……ever. No piece of legislation you recommend will change that.

It could be argued that the best you can accomplish by regulating carding is to permit police intimidation of the citizenry under some controls.

You have a challenge ahead of you.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

The Toronto Star and Globe and Mail have run carding items almost daily since the beginning of the month, and there’s no expectation the papers will give up on a good story any time soon. What had been intermittent background media static against carding for the last few years is now a noisy gong, ….relentless, deafening, demanding.

So, why did it take this long for so many prominent voices to finally come to the microphone when the people in the street have been speaking out in vain since ‘climate change’ came into the lexicon? Was Desmond Cole’s Toronto Life essay really a tipping point with the magnitude to bring out so many big guns?
Pierre Trudeau tried to curb police random stops by retracting two parts of the vagrancy section of the Criminal Code back in the first half of the 1970s, to little notice and with no impact. He thought simply removing a provision would effect change. Trudeau underestimated police determination to evade civilian control. What the prime minister did was the sound of one shoe dropping; he needed prohibitions to force his vision. Was he naive and erred innocently?

Speculation is an academic pastime. Change comes with action.

Of all the newspaper pieces this month, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah’s op-ed in the Tuesday, June 9, Globe and Mail is among the most revealing. He’s currently an assistant professor of criminal justice at Indiana University, and received his PhD in criminology from the University of Toronto, researching the policing of black males in Toronto. He also worked for Ontario’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, and sat on consultative committees at Toronto Police headquarters.

“End of carding just a beginning” is an overview of many years of institutional racialization in Toronto, and warns that “if we decide to stop at carding, and consider ourselves satisfied with a victory on it, we will have done ourselves, and our city, a great disservice. If we are going to commend Mr. Tory, it should be for having started a process, not for having ended one.”

And, that is the point. An end to carding will not make for a substantive change to police practice and tactics. It is but a beginning.

Reprinted here is our latest carding letter, this one to the president of the Toronto Police Association: –

June 11, 2015

Mr. Mike McCormack, President,
Toronto Police Association,
200 – 2075 Kennedy Road,
Toronto, ON M1T 3V3

Re: Carding

Mr. McCormack:

I don’t question that ‘carding’ has been “a proven, pro-active police investigative strategy that reduces, prevents and solves crime.” The Toronto Star’s claim that no evidence is available to support your position has merit, but then it may be a matter of the degree to which carding is a police asset.

I contend that what the practice does or doesn’t do is irrelevant. After all, we can offer our police services much more effective tools: suspend habeas corpus, dispense with the need for search warrants, and legislate that identification must be carried on our persons and presented whenever asked. But, both Lincoln and Jefferson subscribed to the axiom that says if we give up a little bit of liberty in the name of law and order, we’ll deserve both and have neither. We should all say the same.

Men and women who train to become our police officers are taught to get on top and take control. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” is police psychology 101, designed to put anyone on the defensive. Tactics that coerce people into doing what they don’t want and don’t need to do are not conducive to a positive relationship between public servants and the citizenry to whom they are accountable.

Carding in any and all the forms it’s taken over the last many decades is an affront to democracy, and needs not only to be abolished, but prohibited as well.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

copies to: Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario
John Tory, Mayor of Toronto
Mark Saunders, Chief of Police

On May 23, the Toronto Star published an opinion piece written by Ruth Goba, the Interim Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. It is one more call for our police service to end what Ms. Goba describes as “an insidious practice that contravenes the Code and has no place in modern Canadian society.” The full text (Opinion Editorial: Political will needed to end carding) can be seen at http://www.ohrc.on.ca.
In appreciation, we wrote Ms. Goba:-

May 27, 2015

Ruth Goba, Hon. BA, LLB,
Interim Chief Commissioner,
Ontario Human Rights Commission,
180 Dundas Street West, Suite 900,
Toronto, ON M7A 2R9

Re: Political will needed to end carding

Dear Ms Goba:

I’m 73 years old, white, and in the years since I moved into Toronto in 1959 I have never been stopped by police. For decades though, I refused to carry identification in order to reinforce with any police officer who might question me that there is no legal requirement to do so.

Carding is an abhorrent infringement by the public service on the sovereignty of the people. I’ve told that to the police, to the mayor, and to the people in my circle and the contacts I have. That I have never been stopped doesn’t lessen my indignation that it’s happening to others.

Your opinion editorial makes the good point that until we persuade, or force, our elected representatives to act, the police may continue to do as they please in the face of those to whom they are accountable.

Please keep up the good work.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen
cc: John Tory, Mayor of Toronto
Mark Saunders, Chief, Toronto Police Services

The Toronto Star and Globe and Mail both ran a story on May 13 about Mutaz Elmardy’s carding experience with the Toronto police in January of 2011, and Ontario Superior Court Justice Frederick Myers’ award of $27,000 in damages to Mr.Elmardy after he sued the Toronto Police Services Board and a TPS constable.

Wendy Gillis’ column in the Star, “Being carded? Judge says you can tell cops to get lost”, made the paper’s front page. It’s a frank and detailed account of the interaction between Elmardy and six police officers four years ago, and the court’s findings based on the evidence presented during the trial. What was unusual here is there were no independent witnesses and no video documentation for the court to examine.

Sean Fine’s “Toronto man wins controversial police ‘carding’ case” in the Globe and Mail is a shorter and slightly muted account of Mr. Elmardy’s experience and the ensuing court action. Nonetheless, the judge’s ruling leaves no doubt of his disapproval of the behaviour of the officers involved.

As of the date of publication in the Star and Globe, no decision had been made by the police about an appeal of Myers’ decision.

The Toronto Star is monitoring judges’ rulings that find police officers lied on a witness stand since the paper published “Police Who Lie” in 2012. As a result of that series, then Ontario Attorney General John Gerretsen ordered Crown Attorneys to report these decisions to their superiors, who would then refer them to the police force involved. Just what kind of impact this policy has had is subject to disheartening speculation.

Nonetheless, the Star continues to report incidents of probable police dishonesty, and two examples were featured in their GTA Section on succeeding days in April. “Cops deceit leads to case dismissal” on April 23 referenced two officers of the Toronto Police Service. “Cop ‘lied’ to get warrant, judge rules” ran on April 24 and spotlighted an officer with the Peel Regional Police.

turnoverarocktoday sent a brief comment to both Toronto and Peel police. They’re reprinted here. There’s nothing in particular that distinguishes the Star stories of April 23 and 24 from similar examples coming to our attention, either from the media or anecdotal, but the volume needs to be turned up occasionally.

What you’ll read here more than once over time is: You need to stand up, you need to speak up, you need to act up……..otherwise, you need to pack up!

April 25, 2015

Mark Pugash, Director,
Unit Commander, Corporate Communications,
Toronto Police Service,
40 College Street,
Toronto, ON M5G 2J3

Re: Cop’s deceit leads to case dismissal
Toronto Star, April 23, 2015

Director Pugash:

I’m going to stick out my neck, and make an assumption. Constables Juin Pinto and Kimberley Sabadics are still active employees of the TPS, aren’t they?

So, what does that say about the integrity of the force, and its perspective on discreditable conduct by some of its members?

Tell us again Director Pugash why we should see our police officers in a positive light.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

April 25, 2015

Jennifer Evans, Chief,
Peel Regional Police,
7750 Hurontario Street,
Brampton, ON L6V 3W6

Re: Cop ‘lied’ to get warrant, judge rules
Toronto Star, Friday, April 24, 2015

Chief Evans:

I’m going to make a prediction that Constable Aamer Merchant will still be employed by the Peel Regional Police a year from now.

I’m hoping you’re asked in the spring of 2016 exactly why the public should feel confident in the integrity of their police officers.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

According to a recent issue of The Economist, during 2013 in Britain, not one person was shot and killed by police!

The cover story for Toronto Life’s May, 2015 edition is Desmond Cole’s “The Skin I’m In”, a memoir about being black in Toronto. This essay is generating much attention here in Canada and elsewhere, even though it only became available on the newsstands in the last few days. This Toronto Life article is available on their web site, too, at http://www.torontolife.com.

There’s been considerable exposure in Toronto’s media over the last few years, and in particular at the Toronto Star, covering the practice of police stops and the carding of citizens. After yesterday’s posting, “Carding – Everything old is new again”, there may still be some readers who are not familiar with the subject. To fill in much of that gap, please refer to http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/senator…/toronto-carding-_b_5031324.html

The Globe and Mail ran articles on a Toronto Police Services revised carding policy….what are now being called “community engagement reports”…on March 28 and April 3. The Toronto Star published its stories on March 28 and April 2. At no point do our police question the practice; it’s a matter of how the stops are conducted. Both newspapers see the new rules as little more than a rehash of what’s gone on before.
What has always been true is a citizen’s responsibility to know what rights people have, and a willingness to stand up both individually and collectively to blunt the State’s intrusion. It’s unfortunate how difficult a lesson that is to learn on the one hand, while a general reluctance to question authority leaves open the option for abuse on the other.

April 6, 2015

Alok Mukherjee, Chair,
Toronto Police Services Board,
40 College Street,
Toronto, ON M5B 2J3

Re: Carding

Chairman Mukherjee:

Chief Bill Blair is correct that “community engagement reports” are an invaluable investigative tool. Chief Blair’s assessment is also irrelevant.

Over a period of time after I moved to Toronto in 1959 from a small rural community, I became puzzled by a general lack of understanding among people of an individual’s rights. Police officers were assumed to know the law, were assumed to hold those rights sacrosanct, and would of course ensure they were protected. How was it possible then, for instance, that so many believed we were all required by law to carry identification on our persons? Such a quaint concept in a democracy! Unfortunately, fifty-six years later, not much has changed. How can that be?

I’ve written to Chief Blair previously to say that “carding” is an abhorrent infringement by the public service on the sovereignty of the citizenry. Now, that’s relevant!

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen
cc Bill Blair, Chief, Toronto Police Service
John Tory, Mayor, City of Toronto

On December 11, 2014, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled that police can conduct limited searches of suspects’ cellphones without a search warrant….but, they must follow strict rules. The search must be directly related to the circumstances of an arrest, and detailed records of the search must be kept.
The Court’s 4 to 3 ruling is a margin so narrow one wonders how much sway tipped the decision one way or the other.
This writer is ambivalent on the subject, but there’s a tendency to agree with the Court. The problem though, and the issue I have with the SCC’s ruling, is best articulated in Heather Mallick’s December 15 Toronto Star column, “Court ruling on cellphones ravages people’s privacy.” It questions the Court’s belief that the police can regulate themselves, and will follow the rules. There can be information on a cellphone subject to broad interpretation, stored for personal but non-relevant purposes, and in some cases outdated and awaiting deletion. Check out this column on the Star’s web site. In any case, we can foretell legal challenges are to come.
One important question Ms. Mallick asks in her column is, can a suspect refuse to provide a phone’s password to the police. I was able to email her the answer. No, suspects are not required to provide passwords, BUT the police know that most people don’t know that and they will press for the information. The message……be informed….and inform. And, choose passwords wisely.