HALIFAX—The city’s police board has recommended that Halifax Regional Police and Halifax district RCMP immediately suspend street checks and apologize to Black Nova Scotians for the discriminatory practice.

The board of police commissioners met Monday to discuss a report from Toronto criminologist Scot Wortley, tabled last month, that showed Black people in Halifax are six times more likely than white people to be subjected to street checks, also known as carding. The board discussed versions of the report behind closed doors three times over the last few months, but Monday’s discussion was the first in public.

About a dozen people gathered at the meeting to call for a ban on street checks, and they cheered as the board unanimously passed a motion from Councillor Lindell Smith recommending that Halifax police and RCMP leaders immediately suspend street checks and apologize to Black Nova Scotians. The board will also write a letter to the provincial government in support of a province-wide suspension.

“We need to stop it today,” Smith said after reading his motion.

“I’ve thought about this moment for a long time. I’ve talked to people from all over the country — lawyers, officers, activists, you know name it, I spoke to them — and almost every single person I spoke to, they all said the practice needs to stop.”

Wortley tabled his report for the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission two years after the first data on carding showed Black people were three times more likely to be street checked than white people. Wortley’s report used more data, along with interviews with Black people and police, to conclude that the discrimination inherent in street checks was far worse than originally reported.

At Monday’s meeting, Smith read one of dozens of personal accounts from Black people in Wortley’s report: “My son — in his twenties — gets stopped by the police all the time. He calls me for his own safety. I keep him on the phone during the police stop to make sure he’s going to be OK. I just don’t trust that they will treat him properly. I don’t trust that he’ll be safe.”

“We need to fix that,” Smith said.

Commissioner Carlos Beals agreed, arguing the board had to at least support a suspension of street checks before any progress could be made.

“Do we stop the wound and allow it to heal as we determine the best treatment?” he asked, “Or do we continue to let the wound bleed until we can’t come back from it?”

Wortley’s report offered two options: ban street checks or regulate them to ensure they’re no longer discriminatory. If leaders chose the regulation option, he suggested they suspend the practice while creating the new regulations.

The provincial justice department has the authority, under the Police Act, to ban or regulate street checks. Justice Minister Mark Furey is expected to announce his preliminary decision in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the board of police commissioners has the power to make recommendations like this one.

“Given the impact, historically, and looking at what’s happened in the community, and looking at what’s happened with individuals and other reports, I think the time has come for some type of action,” commissioner Natalie Borden said.

But Borden cautioned that an outright ban on street checks wouldn’t fix the relationship between police and the Black community in Halifax.

“It is the right thing to do, but we’ve got to be careful with thinking that’s going to solve the problem and that there isn’t more work to be done to improve those interactions,” she said.

Isaac Saney, a Dalhousie University professor and founder of the group Racism-Free Transit in Halifax, told reporters after the meeting that a ban was a symbolic gesture.

“What we are really underscoring are fundamental issues in which the Black community is being oppressed, has been criminalized, has had their human rights violated in a systematic way by the Halifax Regional Police.”

Now that the board has made that gesture, it’s up to police to follow through.

Halifax Regional Police Supt. Don MacLean, who was at the meeting in place of Acting Chief Robin McNeil, who’s in charge after former chief Jean Michel-Blais’ retirement from the force, wouldn’t say how long it would take management to decide whether to abide by the board’s recommendation.

“I can’t speak to that right now,” MacLean said in an interview.

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“While I understand the impetus for quick decision making sometimes, we need to ensure that we fully engage that process going forward … It’s a complex issue that I think is going to require some complexity of thought.”

RCMP Insp. Robert Doyle, the ranking officer in the Halifax district, gave a similar response.

“Ultimately we’ll have to take a look at the recommendations as they come out and specifically stipulated as to what they’re looking for, and then in consultation with our division management, we’ll be making a decision going forward,” Doyle said in an interview.

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