Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me to appear today. My name is Alain Babineau. I'm a law enforcement and social justice advocate. I also have over 30 years' experience with law enforcement, 28 of which were with the RCMP.
I'm here this afternoon to talk to you about systemic racism and discrimination in policing and what I think needs to be done to purge the profession of these.
Systemic racism far too often rears its ugly head in policing in two different ways. First, in the way in which we deliver police services to BIPOC communities, and second, in the way police services often treat their own few racialized officers.
First of all, I believe that law enforcement protects the foundation of our society and that every action it poses touches a life in a significant way, positively or negatively. As trust in police also defines the extent to which members of the public view the police as legitimate, if police lose public confidence, it can compromise their ability and authority to work effectively.
Secondly, I believe that whether the public's decreased confidence in policing is caused by the behaviour of so-called individual bad apples or organizational recklessness and apathy in dealing with those bad apples, these issues negatively affect trust in the police, particularly among the most vulnerable communities.
In spite of the 1999 R. v. Brown decision by the Ontario Superior Court, which identified the racial profiling concept of “driving while Black”, and the 2019 judicial recognition by the Supreme Court of the notion of systemic racial profiling in the R. v. Le decision, the issue of racial profiling by law enforcement remains arguably one of the most highly contested topics of conversation in criminal justice today.
Internal systemic discrimination has been part of policing organizations for decades, and cannot be addressed unless identified clearly. Senator Murray Sinclair said:
Some people believe that systemic racism is when everybody in the system is a racist and there is no system where everybody is a racist.
He clarified, though:
Systemic racism is when the system itself is based upon and founded upon racist beliefs and philosophies and thinking and has put in place policies and practices that literally force even the non-racists to act in a racist way.
In 2019, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians annual report revealed that resistance to diversity and inclusion is strongest among the non-commissioned officer rank from which the future officers are drawn.
As commissioned officers are decision-makers and leaders in policing, this information is very concerning to me. During my 30 years in law enforcement, and since George Floyd's death, I've spoken to enough BIPOC officers to know that what I personally experienced and witnessed during my service is reflective of the experience of many with systemic discrimination within their respective organizations.
We must keep in mind that in policing, possibly more than any other field, the possession of social capital is essential. In this culture, trust, norms and networks approved by the dominant group, and those who hold the key to success determine who achieve advancement through the organization. Consequently, because of the lack of critical numbers, BIPOC members struggle with acquiring social capital.
To be fair, I must say that over the years, in an attempt to respond to the realities of diversity, police services have adopted policies, initiatives and practices to reflect community representation. However, in my opinion and that of many visible minority police officers, it is easy to see the gap between the adoption of diversity policies and their actual implementation within organizations.
While some individual human rights complaints contained descriptions of behaviour that reflect a racist workplace culture, during an investigation the dots are not usually connected, and an underlying pattern of systemic discrimination is not identified.
From my experience with the Quebec Human Rights Commission, the police ethics commissioner, as well as the Canadian Human Rights Commission, those agencies are far too often either unable or unwilling to investigate complaints of race or systemic discrimination in a meaningful way. As a result, those agencies perpetuate the problem of systemic racism in policing.
With respect to police unions, historically BIPOC officers have not felt heard by them. For example, RCMP's fledging National Police Federation, which does not have a single BIPOC member on its board, essentially attacked the commissioner last summer when she finally recognized the existence of systemic racism in the RCMP.
However the NPF is not alone. Right across Canada police unions have rapidly been rejecting the existence of any form of systemic discrimination within their particular service. As a result, various iterations of backlash have been filed by BIPOC officers right across the nation.
As I mentioned throughout my remarks, systemic discrimination on the ground and inequalities within the police are deeply linked to a history of exclusion and prejudice. From an anti-discrimination perspective, there is an urgent need to examine the policies, practices and behaviours that encourage, condone and tolerate discrimination in any police organization.
Based on a previous lack of meaningful effort in the area of employment equity and policing, the federal government now has an opportunity to direct meaningful cultural changes in the RCMP so that it becomes an example for all other police services in this country to follow.
With respect to racial profiling, I believe that the federal government must also take the lead and pass an anti-racial profiling law. A proposed bill was tabled by the NDP in 2005, but it died in the end because of the federal election.
Ladies and gentlemen, with respect to eradication of systemic racism in policing, I say to you, “If not now, then when”.
