Canadian Heritage Committee on Sept. 25th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much. That was quick for a lawyer.

We're going to go to a second round and it's a three minute round. We will begin with Scott Reid for the Conservatives.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Of course, for a politician the answer to a question like that is always yes and no.

Mr. Richard, if I could start with you, the year of the commission was 1994. You mentioned there was a 2007 update. The commission is easy for us to find, but the update might not be, since it sounds like it was done by an academic. Could you submit a copy of that to the clerk or advise the clerk where to get it?

[Shawn Richard]

I can advise the clerk where to get it. The report is from December 1995. The academic is Professor Scot Wortley, who is a criminologist at the University of Toronto.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Are there any further updates on the report since then?

[Shawn Richard]

No. Just to be clear, because this is enormous and it must have cost a lot of money to produce, Professor Wortley actually only looked at one issue and that was perceptions of bias among Toronto police. This report deals with everything, including people's perceptions and actually, teachers' perceptions in schools. It is a broad report and a meaty one.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

On the subject of getting statistics, you mentioned an incarceration explosion from the 1980s to the 1990s and then a further explosion now. Do you actually mean that just as a continual secular trend in the direction of more blacks being incarcerated? I'm just going to put this all together because I won't have time for you to come back and give me multiple answers to multiple questions. I assume this is in the environment of overall incarceration rates actually starting to go down. If we look at blacks within the overall prison population, I assume the percentage is going up more than the black population of the percentage of the overall population is. Is that a distinct phenomenon from overall incarceration rates within Canadian society?

[Shawn Richard]

Yes. The number of black people in prison both provincially and federally is increasing at a rate that does not track with our representation in the population. I think between 1986 and 1994, the numbers were somewhere around 300%. It's in the report, so don't quote me on that. Since then it has tracked on similar lines, but I think actually it might even be higher.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Okay, one last thing—I have 30 seconds here.

Blacks are distributed across the country in certain areas and incarcerations and charges being laid against individuals also occur across the country. Is there a geographic distinction between some jurisdictions and others within Canada as to these issues?

[Shawn Richard]

The answer to that is, I don't know, in part because the comprehensive study that was done was done in Toronto where most black people are.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

It's very different on the west coast and in the Prairies. It's not blacks. It's indigenous people.

Mr. Vandal, for three minutes.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Thank you very much to all of you for your presentations.

On the same theme, could you say a bit more about a term you brought up, “differential enforcement”? Tell me more about that.

[Shawn Richard]

Differential enforcement is a fancy way for saying if you are.... I think of a commission that came out with its final conclusion that if you're black, you're going to be treated more harshly than if you are white, and that's at all levels. In the decision to arrest, police had a lot of discretion to exercise. One of the statistics that they used was about drug charges. The ratio was about 3:1.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

If you are caught with drugs, you're more likely to be arrested if you're a black person—

[Shawn Richard]

—if you are black than if you're white.

It's the police officers' decision to exercise that discretion they have. It continues along the system, and remand is the one that catches the most headlines because you have people who have been in prison and at the end of the day, they go through trial and they're found not guilty. Here's a person who's been out of the system, likely for years.... It's not just remand. It's loss of employment. It's being away from your family, your children; you don't see them for a few years. You are completely dislocated from your life. That's an incredible set of facts that can't be captured by statistics, and there is a difference between whites and blacks; at least that's what is found in this report.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Talk a little bit more, and I think you've probably already started to, on unjustifiable decisions, which you referenced earlier; same thing.

[Shawn Richard]

Can you give me a little more meat, because I'm a lawyer and I have to be careful.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

You mentioned two terms in your presentation. One was differential enforcement, which you spoke about, and the other one was distinct and unjustifiable decisions by the courts.

[Shawn Richard]

Let me be very careful and stay with the study, because I have an obligation to the administration of justice and to make sure it's never held in disrepute.

The findings of the commission were that if you looked at the factors that determined whether or not someone would be held in remand, and you just looked at white and black and considered those factors, you could not explain it, based on the relevant factors that were supposed to play a role in making a decision as to whether or not someone should remain in prison until their trial.

I hope that gives you some further....

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Scott, are you doing this or is David doing this? Okay, you have two minutes.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you.

I want to turn now to the issue of carding, which I guess is known by a number of different names in different areas of the country. Is it essentially practised by all police forces, or are some of them forcefully using carding?

[Shawn Richard]

I don't know if it's practised by all police forces. Certainly, Toronto had a live and well program of carding and, of course, Peel has one. On Ottawa, there was a report as well. It's something that appears to be quite broad across the country, but I don't have the statistics for you.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I've never experienced this myself, so describe to me what exactly happens when you're carded.

[Shawn Richard]

It could be that you're walking down the street minding your own business. Police drive by. They stop you and ask you who you are, where you're going, what you're doing, why you're doing it. They want your ID and they're taking notes the whole time. They call it “208” in Toronto and the cards get filed away somewhere in a database that they had this interaction with you.

The part that I emphasize is it's not because they're investigating a crime, not because you're a person of interest; it's because you are living your life freely and here comes a police officer, who has all of the accessories that we know they have, who stands a particular way, who is armed, and then the question is, “Are you not going to answer these questions?” Then the question becomes, “Why aren't you answering my questions? Do you have something to hide?”

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Just to be clear here then, in theory you have the ability to say, in response to every question, “Am I legally obliged to answer that?”, but in practice there would be many people who would not feel confident doing that.