

NOTE: This article was edited from a previously published version.



A human rights tribunal verdict of racial profiling against a Toronto constable sets "an impossibly high standard" that will be challenged in court, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair said yesterday.

"We're not denying the existence of bias or the possibility of racial profiling," Blair said in an interview with the Star.

He said the tribunal's decision last month that Ron Phipps, who is black, was a victim of racial profiling by Const. Michael Shaw, who is white, means "you can have the best of intentions and be totally without bias but none of that matters if someone wants to believe you are biased."

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario ruled that by stopping Phipps while he was delivering mail on a Bridle Path street in 2005, checking with a homeowner he spoke to, trailing him and verifying his identity with a white letter carrier, Shaw was guilty of racial profiling. There was no overt racism, the tribunal said, but Shaw's actions showed he acted "whether consciously or unconsciously" because Phipps was a black man in an affluent neighbourhood.

That decision, said Blair, "sets a standard that's new, that can't be met" by any reasonable, fair-minded officer. Police lawyers are preparing a challenge to the Divisional Court of the Superior Court of Ontario, he said.

"They weren't suggesting for a moment that he was doing anything wrong," said Blair. "Frankly, verifying the information doesn't strike me as unreasonable. Their finding demonstrates a seriously flawed misunderstanding of the duties of a police officer."

"The tribunal decision speaks for itself," Margaret Layton, counsel to the chair of the human rights tribunal, said yesterday.

The chief is sending a message via police intranet this morning to the entire force "that they still have to do their job and it must be done courteously and free of bias. But they should know that when they conduct themselves that way they have the support of the service to do their jobs. I don't want them to feel diminished."

Blair said he discussed the decision yesterday with Barbara Hall, chair of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which last year turned over all complaint hearings to the independent tribunal.

For the past two and a half years, the police have made "very significant progress" working with the Toronto Police Services Board and the Ontario Human Rights Commission to make sure officers are hired, trained and working as best they can to deal with a very diverse city, Blair said.

Hall agreed, saying, "They're making a lot of progress." The Bridle Path encounter is "an occurrence from 2005," she said, but called the decision "confirmation that systemic discrimination is often something of which people are unaware and it requires hard work to get rid of."

Phipps's claim against Blair himself and the Toronto police as a whole, which was separated from the original complaint involving Shaw, is to be heard Sept. 14, although the police force is disputing where it should be heard.

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Blair pointed out the tribunal found no evidence that Shaw tried to intimidate Phipps. And he was gratified, he said, that Shaw politely asked Phipps for identification.

Blair asked for an interview with the Star because of his concern that "this public airing will have a really negative effect, reaffirming with some parts of the population their belief that this is what police are doing.