A A

An Ontario report calling for a ban on random police street checks could throw a wrench into Canada’s new impaired driving legislation which came into force in December.

The 310-page report by Justice Michael Tulloch concludes racialized communities are harmed by random street checks and recommends Ontario put an end to them. Marginalized communities are cheering the report which has given voice to complaints about a policing technique known as “carding.”

Visible minorities in Nova Scotia have also complained about racial profiling in police checks. According to information released by Halifax Regional Police last year, black people are three times more likely than whites to be stopped in a street check. Police counter that these checks are motivated by reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

The experience of Halifax boxer Kirk Johnson would tell another story. He was awarded $10,000 in damages for racial discrimination after he was pulled over by police in 1998 and had his car seized. Other people of colour have described being pulled over by police for no apparent reason, giving rise to the term “driving while black.”

These problems echo warnings expressed over Bill C-46, the new law allowing police to demand a breath test without reasonable suspicion of impairment. In a submission before the Senate committee examining the bill last year, the Criminal Lawyers’ Association said this contravenes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ provisions against unreasonable search or seizure. “Bill C-46 amounts to carding while in a car,” they argued. “It will be inevitably disproportionally (sic) employed against minority or marginalized communities.”

Tulloch concurs: “The negative impact of random carding, particularly on Indigenous, black and other racialized communities, combined with the limited evidence that it is an effective police tool, brings me to only one logical conclusion, and that is that random carding should end.” (He does make the point that street checks on people suspected of criminal activity is an important tool in investigations.)

We have supported Bill C-46 and the increased powers it provides police in the name of public safety and reducing road carnage. But if this results in certain groups being unfairly targeted for breath tests, then it will be important to test this law’s constitutional validity in court.