HALIFAX—A long-awaited report confirms Black people are disproportionally targeted by street checks, but political leaders refused to immediately halt the practice while planning a solution.

Toronto criminologist Scot Wortley tabled the report at an event at the Halifax Central Library on Wednesday.

Police data released to the CBC in January 2017 showed Black people in the municipality were more than three times more likely than white people to be subjected to street checks. The Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission hired Wortley to review the use of street checks in September 2017.

The new report, which looked at a larger data set spread over 12 years, found the disparity is even more stark. Wortley found that Black people in Halifax are almost six times more likely to be street checked than white people.

Wortley’s report offered two options, with corresponding sets of recommendations: ban the practice — which is also known as “carding” — altogether or better regulate it to mitigate racial disparities in surveillance and data collection.

Robert Wright of the African Nova Scotian Decade for People of African Descent Coalition called for an immediate moratorium on street checks while the municipality’s board of police commissioners and the provincial government make their choice, but he and the coalition believe they should be banned completely.

“We can’t begin to talk about the regulation of something that may be, and in our position is, indeed, illegal. We do not regulate illegal activity,” he said during the event.

Wright said he believes there is good will among politicians to change the practice, but in an interview after the event, he said the lack of immediate action shows they made a choice.

“Who do we want to demonstrate our support to today? Front-line police officers or members of the Black community? If we want to please front-line police officers, no moratorium. Business as usual, no confusion, no stress for you. But the Black community has been thrown under the bus,” he said.

Councillor Steve Craig, the chair of the municipality’s board of police commissioners, said the power to make change is ultimately in the hands of the provincial government. He was, however, the only politician to offer an apology.

“The board of police commissioners, we did not completely fulfil our role and responsibility of oversight in this area, nor the state of relationships between police and our African Nova Scotian communities in HRM. And for this, the commission and I am very sorry,” he said during the event Wednesday.

“We will do better.”

Craig said in an interview afterward that he apologized because he felt the board should’ve been more proactive in addressing this issue, but it’s up to the Justice Department to make changes. He said he’s not sure the municipality could unilaterally ban street checks even within its borders.

Provincial justice minister Mark Furey wouldn’t commit to a temporary ban and expressed concern that banning street checks would drive the practice “underground.”

“I can stand here and apologize for 200 years-plus of mistreatment towards African Nova Scotians, but my commitment to you today is to effect change from this point forward. This cannot continue to happen,” he said at the library.

“It’s important to review the impacts of making any one decision, and I’m going to need time to do that.”

Furey said “systemic racism over 200-plus years” was to blame for the racial disparities in street check data and vowed to include African Nova Scotians in the decision-making process.

Wortley’s report detailed accounts from dozens of Black people in Halifax, pulled from interviews and a series of community meetings.

Trayvone Clayton, 20, told his story on Wednesday. He said he left a party when he was 16 years old and was stopped by a police officer who put him in a chokehold, slammed him to the ground and pressed a knee to his head.

“It’s funny because my father, he told me to read the Charter of Rights. I was like, ‘Dad, I’m 16. I don’t have to do that.’ Clearly I was wrong,” he said.

“(The officer) said sorry, but that sorry doesn’t mean nothing till all this is fixed because this continues to happen to us Blacks.”

Marcus James, Clayton’s father and the co-founder of the group 902 Man Up, which works with young Black men in Halifax, said he’s still kept up at night worrying about his son.

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“Those are generational curses that have plagued our African Nova Scotian community, Blacks globally. We don’t have 400 years to fix this,” he said.

Wright said he knows “substantial and symbolic gestures,” like an immediate stop to street checks, are scary for leaders in justice and policing.

“I would suggest to you that they are less scary than being a 16-year-old boy lying on the pavement with someone’s knee on your head,” he said.

Wright hoped that by the time the 6 p.m. news came on, there’d be a change of heart. He said he’d be waiting.

“As will all of the people in this room, as will all African Nova Scotians, as will all African Canadians because we’re Scotians here and the rest of the country looks to us in terms of our treatment of people of African descent,” he said.

Sen. Wanda Thomas Bernard voiced her support for Wright’s call for a ban during the event, saying she’s been street checked herself more times than she cares to admit.

“This is not just about Halifax. This is a national problem, and I absolutely agree with Mr. Wright, that the rest of Canada will be watching what happens from here. So the actions that the leadership in this province takes will be very, very important,” she said.

Wortley has been involved in studies into street check data in several jurisdictions in Ontario, dating back to a study in Kingston in 2005.

Wortley found that Halifax has a higher rate of street checks than Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. Halifax’s rate is comparable to cities like Edmonton and Calgary and much lower than Toronto’s.

The numbers in Halifax have been dropping since 2007, but “the overrepresentation of Black people in street check statistics is remarkably consistent.”

“Every year from 2006 to 2017, Black people have been five to six times more likely to appear in street check statistics than their representation in the general population would predict,” Wortley wrote in the report.

Asked by reporters whether he believes systemic racism exists, outgoing Halifax Regional Police Chief Jean-Michel Blais said there has been racism in Canada, Nova Scotia and Halifax.

“The question is are we doing something to deal with those issues on a regular basis,” Blais said.

Though his final recommendations provide two options, Wortley was adamant that something needs to change.

“I do think a decision must be made to either ban or regulate street checks in Nova Scotia. The status quo should not be an option,” he said during Wednesday’s event.

“The consequences … clearly outweigh, in my opinion, any crime prevention benefits.”

He said he doesn’t believe the decision to either ban or regulate street checks is an easy one and outlined some of the pros and cons. A ban on street checks would have “a great symbolic value,” he said, but may not change “racial disparities in police stop, question and search activities.”

He also said he’s heard from both sides of the debate on whether street checks are even legal, and the provincial government and board of police commissioners should seek a “full independent legal opinion regarding the lawfulness of street check practices.”

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