HALIFAX—They aren’t holding their breath, but two members of Nova Scotia’s Black community say an apology over street checks could be a first step in healing their broken trust with police.

To Robert Wright, a social worker and sociologist who chairs the African Nova Scotian Decade for People of African Descent (DPAD) Coalition’s justice committee, institutional apologies are a critical part of the reparations process.

“How do you repair something?” asked Wright in an interview Wednesday. “You start by acknowledging that you have done something wrong, you express regret and sorrow for having done it by acknowledging the harm you did to the other, and that apology creates the conditions for rebuilding a bridge.”

Wright and other members of Nova Scotia’s Black community are demanding an apology from Halifax Regional Police and RCMP after a landmark Human Rights Commission report validated what the community had been saying for years: that policing has had a disproportionately negative effect on the province’s Black population.

The March 2019 report, which revealed that Black people in Halifax were six times more likely than white people to be stopped by police, was met with a demand for an apology and an immediate suspension of the practice of street checks.

The suspension came from justice minister Mark Furey three weeks later, but the apology was stayed, as police said it would “appear disingenuous” to apologize over street checks “at this time.”

Wright said he wasn’t shocked when he heard the police would not apologize. To him, it falls in step with everything he’s come to expect from government.

“Government will not apologize until they are ready to have a comprehensive solution to the street check file,” said Wright. “And if they do not plan to have a comprehensive solution, they will not apologize.”

Despite his lack of surprise, Wright said the lack of an apology demonstrates a continued lack of responsibility to the Black community.

“By not apologizing and not quickly getting to the place where they can apologize, it feels a little like police ... are hedging their bets that this one will blow over,” he said.

Jessica Bundy, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto’s centre for criminology and sociolegal studies who hails from Cherrybrook, N.S., agrees. In an interview Wednesday, she said an apology would be a significant symbolic step in repairing the relationship between the Black community and police.

“A recognition on behalf of the police that street checks have disproportionately affected the Black community would demonstrate, I believe, willingness to work with the Black community,” said Bundy.

“It’s acknowledging, you know, ‘You’ve been historically silenced and ignored, and we understand that we’ve played a part in that, and there’s a lot of data showing that we’ve played a part in that.’”

An April 18 letter from acting Halifax Regional Police chief Robin McNeil assured commissioners that police were “fully committed” to addressing the “overrepresentation of racialized communities” in street-check data but felt it would be inappropriate to speak exclusively to the data when “the community is clearly speaking to so much more.”

“We understand the lack of trust in our systems, including police, has been impacted by decades of decisions that have had negative impacts on access to services and fair treatment,” McNeil wrote in the letter.

At a board of police commissioners meeting on May 13, board chair Councillor Steve Craig told reporters that police wanted to give incoming chief Dan Kinsella a chance to familiarize himself with the issues before making a final decision about an apology.

Bundy said she understands the police want to address the broader systemic issues behind the street-check data but thinks the report offers police a way to talk about both historic and current systemic problems.

“An apology in itself is huge and it speaks to a historically negative relationship that the police and the Black community have had in Nova Scotia — but it can also speak to the street-check data, which shows that that’s not just a historic thing, it’s something that’s currently happening,” said Bundy.

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Wright finds the lack of apology to be a “fairly honest” response from police.

“The police are essentially saying: ‘Why would we apologize for doing something that we intended to do, that we were responsible to do, that we’re still doing and plan to continue to do?’” said Wright. “With responsibility comes obligation, and I don’t think that we’re ready for the obligation.”

Still, both Wright and Bundy point out that Halifax’s leaders are no strangers to large-scale apologies.

At an emotional press conference in February 2010, then-mayor Peter Kelly issued an official apology on behalf of Halifax Regional Municipality to former residents and descendants of Africville who were forced to relocate when the community was bulldozed in the late ’60s.

“The repercussions of what happened in Africville linger to this day,” reads the apology statement. “They play out in lingering feelings of hurt and distrust, emotions that this municipality continues to work hard with the African Nova Scotian community to overcome.”

In 2008, RCMP apologized to the Black community in Digby, N.S., after the force determined Staff Sgt. Wylie Grimm, who was in command of the Digby detachment until 2005, made sexist and racist comments through the early 2000s.

At another emotional event in 2015, the province apologized to former residents of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, a Halifax-area orphanage. Former residents allege they had been subject to psychological, physical and sexual abuse from staff over a 50-year period.

“It is one of the great tragedies in our province’s history that your cries for help were greeted with silence for so long,” said Premier Stephen McNeil at the time of the apology.

“An apology is not a closing of the books but a recognition that we must cast an unflinching eye on the past as we strive toward a better future.”

And yet, on the issue of street checks, the police and the province have chosen to remain silent.

“At this time it looks like they’re focusing more on the actions behind the apology, you know, trying to improve efforts with the Black community,” said Bundy.

“One without the other is not going to work. An apology with no followup action is going to appear disingenuous, and then action with no apology isn’t going to build trust with the community.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a Halifax-based journalist and a freelance contributor for Star Halifax. Follow her on Twitter: @jsrutgers

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