Halifax's only black councillor says he's not surprised that black people are three times more likely than white people to be targeted by police during street checks — because it's happened to him too.

Coun. Lindell Smith was responding to a CBC News Investigation that found that of the 36,700 people checked by Halifax Regional Police over an 11-year period, 4,100 of them were black.

That's equivalent to nearly one-third of Halifax's black population.

Smith shared his views on the practice with Don Connolly, host of CBC Radio's Information Morning. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: What was your reaction to the statistics around street checks?

A: It wasn't a surprise. This is something that's been happening for a long time.

It's not a good thing. You hope that when you see something like this it's not true, but the stats are saying that it is, and now we have to see what we can do to not have these conversations.

Q: Has this ever happened to you?

A: Yeah, in the past. Not more recently, but especially in my younger teenage years.

I was driving one night and I got stopped by the police. He comes to my door, asks for my licence and registration and I've always made it a practice — because it's something that had happened to me a fair amount — I asked the officer for information first.

I said, "Well, can I have your badge number, and the reason that you're stopping me?"

Turns out, the reason he was stopping me was because my vehicle came up as another Lindell Smith with the same make in vehicle — but it was somebody who was white.

I don't know how many white Lindell Smiths with the same vehicle were in the city at the time!

Smith says he wasn't surprised to learn that black people are three times more likely than white people to be targeted by Halifax police during street checks. (CBC)

Q: Why do you think this is happening?

A: There may be some officers who are doing these checks that are actually looking at certain groups and targeting them.

But the data has to be analyzed a little bit more to see really why the numbers are so staggering.

Q: Some people are suggesting that street checks should simply stop. What do you make of that?

A: There's a reason why we do it. There are folks that we may need to do street checks on.

But, at the same time — at the current rate that it's happening — there definitely need to be some fixes.