With a unanimous nod Thursday, the Toronto Police Services Board approved a new “historic” policy around the mandated collection of race-based data, a move aimed at improving much-eroded trust in some communities.

It had been a long time coming, and although it doesn’t go as far or as fast as some would like, it sets a standard for Canadian policing, the board was told.

The board approved the much-anticipated policy before a full public gallery, and to applause.

Many in the crowd had been leading the charge to mandate the collection of the data and address bias, including Ontario Human Rights Commission chief commissioner Renu Mandhane and commission staff, John Sewell of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition and Kingsley Gilliam of the Black Action Defense Committee.

Afterward, Notisha Massaquoi, co-chair of the anti-racism advisory panel that shaped the policy, said she was exhausted and happy, and “I don’t think people might understand how much work goes in behind the scenes to get to this place. It was a lot of hours of debate, deliberation and compromises.

“For me personally, as a member of the Black community in Toronto, I wanted to also honour the legacy of people who’ve been advocating for this for over 30 years.”

The panel was formed in the wake of the 2015 fatal police shooting of Andrew Loku, 45, a Black, mentally ill father of five from Sudan.

The panel called on the board to approve the policy and implement phase one — noting race in use-of-force incidents — by January 1, and have the chief embark on a pilot project around people self-identifying race, rather than how it will begin, with officers making that call.

“This is a landmark policy,” Mayor John Tory told reporters after the meeting. “A huge step forward for our police service, and the kind of thing that we expect from our police service.”

Police Chief Mark Saunders welcomed the board’s decision and said he would meet all of the policy’s requirements and go one step further and collect race-based data around “Step 3” searches, or strip searches.

“This is a pivotal point in the history of the Toronto Police Service,” said Saunders. “Our work today to incorporate an anti-racism approach to our policies and procedures, will have far-reaching and progressive impacts for generations to come.”

After the use-of-force phase, the policy calls for the collection of race-based data in a number of other interactions, including stops, charges and arrests.

The panel’s approved report and policy states that the board and the service “have acknowledged that no institution or organization, including ours, is immune from overt and implicit bias,” read the panel’s report to the board. “While we know that systemic bias and racism is impossible to deny, at the same time, we do not consider it either inevitable or acceptable.”

While other institutions outside of policing, including education and health care, face the same challenges, “we acknowledge that a unique obligation is required from those who are charged with upholding the law and serving and protecting all of the members of Toronto’s various communities,” the panel’s report said, in laying out the need for the policy.

The committee — which comprises officers, community members, and experts on race and policing — launched a lengthy and comprehensive process to develop the policies, involving extensive consultation of numerous community groups, police and experts in race-based data collection.

As a result, the policy is “robust and has some weight to move forward and make some change,” said Massaquoi in a recent interview with the Star.

Asked if the panel met with resistance during consultations about how — or even why — police would collect race data, both Massaquoi and her fellow co-chair, board member Uppala Chandrasekera, said they hadn’t.

“There really wasn’t pushback because this is something the community has been calling for for decades and decades, right?” Chandrasekera said.

Massaquoi said there was, however, “skepticism that this policy would actually move forward.”

“I understand the skepticism, in terms of ‘wow — we’ve been working for this for so long, is it really going to move forward?’” Massaquoi, said. “We did have to reassure them that their efforts wouldn’t be wasted.”

The data, which will be de-identified, is to be independently reviewed by an independent expert and the data and analysis shared publicly on the board’s website. Training is also part of the policy, including “experiential learning” and scenario-based training.

Until this policy, police were required under provincial carding regulations to note the race of people they stopped, questioned and documented, and only those encounters — something Toronto police had already been doing for decades and led to controversy over the racially-skewed outcomes.

Repeated Toronto Star investigations into Toronto police carding and arrests and charge data obtained in freedom of information requests, dating back to 2002 and up to 2014, have shown Black people and to a lesser extent people with brown skin were disproportionately stopped and carded, and Black people in certain circumstances were treated more harshly by police after arrest.

The Star’s analysis also showed that Black young men were disproportionately charged with violent offences.

None of the Star’s findings were a surprise to Toronto’s Black communities, but the data led to an inquiry by the Ontario Human Rights Commission into the impacts of racial profiling and sparked discussions and efforts that continue to today around reducing the disparities and targeting the root causes of crime.

The Human Rights Commission also pushed for police to collect race-based data, and in December released its own findings into Toronto police use-of-force in the commission’s ongoing inquiry into racial profiling by the service.

In its submission to the board Thursday, and prior to approval, the commission, via chief rights commissioner Mandhane, said the approval of the policy will be a “historic first step forward” and a “unique moment to build public trust in police and make our community safer.”

The Star was able to also look at anonymized officer data and identified officers and units that most disproportionately stopped and carded people of colour, a tool experts say could be used by supervisors to monitor for potential bias in individuals, including implicit bias, a phenomena experts say comes with simply being human.

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The panel did not go as far as the Star did in identifying individual officers for trends.

“While the policy and its implementation should not be used for performance management or to identify Service Members, it will enable the identification of trends so as to contribute to professional development and organizational change,” read the panel’s report, making it clear that purpose of the policy is “distinct” from the disciplinary process.

Deputant Camille Orridge, a senior fellow at the Wellesley Institute, told the board the absence of individual officer data is “problematic” to the community and is a missing accountability component. She also urged the board to hold off for as long as possible on self-identifying race. Asking that question in the context of police interactions is problematic, she said.

Deputant Aina-Nia Grant of the City of Toronto’s Confronting Anti-Black Racism Unit, disagreed, and said the police should set out immediately to have people self-identify. He also told the board it should be used in performance management of individuals and noted carding was once used in performance reviews.

The Human Rights Commission also called for the data to be used to look at individual officers.

Although the policy does not call for police to look at individual officer data for patterns and for performance purposes, Chief Saunders told reporters “if we do see elements of misconduct, whether it requires a training element, whether it requires a discipline element, we will deal with that.”

Asked if the service would look at an officer’s data if complained about, Saunders said “I would look at the conduct complaint and what is that complaint and we would go through our regular course with respect to what we’re doing and if it ties into the systemic issues then definitely there would be some sort of bridge towards that.”

The policy is not about looking at crime rates in neighbourhoods, by race, which could stigmatize, but it is the starting point to identifying issues, understanding and making change.

“Data tells us where we are, and where we need to be,” said deputant Tanya Sharpe, of the University of Toronto’s social work department, who works with survivors of Black homicide victims.

Julius Haag of the University of Toronto, speaking on behalf of colleagues Scot Wortley and Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, told the board officer manipulation of races recorded could be a problem, as it has been in other jurisdictions where officers note race.

The quality of the data recorded should be analyzed as well, said Haag.

The policy is not “stagnant” said Massaquoi and can be tweaked in the future.

Thursday’s board meeting was Andy Pringle’s last meeting as board chair and as a board member. His four-year term as chair is up, capping eight years on the board. The meeting began with kind words from board vice-chair Marie Moliner, followed by thanks from Tory and Saunders.

Moliner thanked Pringle for championing mental health, the transformational task force, and anti-racism efforts, including the race-based data collection policy.

“How fitting is it that it was presented at your last meeting,” said Moliner.

Pringle thanked staff, the chief and board members, and particularly Chandrasekera for her work on transformation and the collection of race-based data.

“I think this is a team effort,” said Pringle. “Thank you and good luck.”

The board will elect its next chair at the next board meeting on Oct. 22.

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