Police services board postpones public meeting on carding report

On Tuesday, however, Michael Thompson, the board’s vice-chairperson, said Police Chief Bill Blair – who disputed the report’s findings and promised to address them at the meeting – would be meeting the board’s lawyers Wednesday instead.

"That’s what happens in policing: one step forward, 30 behind," said Thompson, a Scarborough councillor who added the lawyers tried to meet the chief well in advance of Wednesday, "but that didn’t materialize."

The report is very critical of how police applied the carding policy this summer in neighbourhoods around the Jane-Finch intersection, after police city-wide were told they could only stop and question people out of concern for "public safety."

Researchers, after interviewing 404 people who live, work or go to school in the area covered by 31 Division, concluded, "there is a view that the police racially profile members of the community," roughly 40 per cent still believe their community’s relationship with police is "poor," and the status quo is "unacceptable by any measure."

When it was introduced to the board on Nov. 13, Blair called the study behind the report "advocacy" and said its findings don’t match facts.

After the board’s chairperson, Alok Mukherjee, reacted to the report before its presentation, saying the police faced a "crisis of confidence" in parts of Toronto, Blair accused Mukherjee of making "inflammatory and reckless" remarks.

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But Thompson this week said he supports Mukherjee’s comment "100 per cent."

There are differing opinions on carding, but there’s no doubt it "has been a consistent problem and a problematic issue for some time."

The councillor charged some on the police force have resisted change and don’t want to believe the report.

"Community people are telling us there is a crisis. I think we need to listen to them," said Thompson. "Their perception is their reality. We have to figure out how to deal with their reality."

The report found 75 people who said they were carded before June, and 62, or 15 per cent of interviewees, carded after.

Almost 48 per cent of residents police stopped and questioned agreed they had been "spoken to disrespectfully" the last time they were carded, and 39 per cent said they were "surrounded and intimidated" by police.

Of those carded since June, after the policy changes took effect, 86 per cent said they didn’t receive a receipt, as required, with the officer’s name, badge number and reason for the stop, while 70 per cent didn’t feel they "had a right to leave."

The announcement Monday said the board will consider the report at one of its future regular meetings.

Next week, however, the board – like other city committees – will be reconstituted for a new municipal term, and Thompson isn’t guaranteed to return, though he said he’s put his name forward.

"There are people hoping the new board will not have the energy" needed to deal with the issue of carding, he said.

Meanwhile, Neil Price, the consultant who wrote the report, will present its findings Thursday, Nov. 27, at a forum in Metro Hall downtown, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., to "identify where we now stand on the issue of police carding and what’s next."

The forum is organized by the "Campaign to Stop Police Carding," but Price in the report said he hoped its recommendations – including a ban on carding minors, keeping contact data a maximum of two years and revising what the report says are "vague and highly subjective" categories used to justify carding – will help the force in revising its contacts policy.

At city hall on Tuesday, Toronto Mayor-elect John Tory said Torontonians need to be "vigilant" in seeing police and the justice system keep the confidence of everyone in the city.

Ensuring "bias-free policing" while allowing police to do their job "will be a high priority of mine," said Tory, revealing he hasn’t decided whether to take a police board seat himself.