Exploring Theme: "Systemic Racism in Policing"

Kent Roach is a professor of law at the University of Toronto and is the author of Canadian Policing: Why and How it Must Change. The Globe and Mail: Between late August and early November, nine Indigenous men and one Indigenous woman died at the hands of police in Canada. Despite an emergency debate in Parliament and calls...

Toronto Star: When is this going to stop? Two weeks ago the Calgary Police Service revealed that three of its members are under investigation by an outside agency for their treatment of an Indigenous man — Jon Wells — who died in a well-appointed hotel lobby. This was the ninth such death across Canada in...

NationTalk: April 1, 2024 – The Chiefs of Ontario (COO) is disappointed that the Ontario government has repeatedly ignored our requests to address the glaring gap contained within the Community Safety and Policing Act, which comes into force today. COO will be moving forward on the promise to take legal action and will be preparing...

Indigenous leaders are urging the province to make it mandatory for Ontario Provincial Police to enforce First Nations laws and bylaws. ByRob FergusonQueen’s Park Bureau Toronto Star: To keep drug traffickers and other criminals at bay, Indigenous leaders are urging the province to make it mandatory for Ontario Provincial Police to enforce First Nations laws...

One officer was found guilty of the lesser charge of assault Warning: Some details in this story are distressing CBC News: Posted December 20; Updated December 21 An Ontario court found a Belleville, Ont., police officer guilty of assault on Wednesday in the November 2019 takedown of a Mohawk man at a Taco Bell. Both...

George Louttit’s sister feels police interactions laced with cultural bias ‘We just don’t know how to heal,’ says family of man killed in fatal collision: Duration 1:30 Amy Louttit said her family is still searching for answers after her brother, George Louttit, was killed in a fatal collision in Little Italy on Oct. 2. Click on...

Black, Indigenous Ontarians overrepresented in cases, report finds Toronto Star: Black and Indigenous Ontarians are far more likely to be subject to police actions serious enough to lead to a Special Investigations Unit probe, the provincial watchdog says in a new report. Between 2020 and 2021, a Black person was 3.5 times more likely to...

Officer objected to a story APTN published about her romantic partner.  APTN News: A Rama First Nation police officer is under investigation after sending emails to an APTN News journalist to express her displeasure at a story he wrote about her romantic partner being involved in an alleged assault on a Métis man in custody....

Southern Chiefs Organization (SCO) – “Only 53% of murder cases involving [Indigenous] women and girls have led to charges of homicide. This is dramatically different from the national clearance rate for homicides in Canada, which was last reported as 84%” (NWAC, 2011). Governments and Canadian institutions now need to fully implement the Calls for Justice....

MacDonald-Laurier Institute – “Systemic racism in policing in Canada and approaches to fixing it,” argues that the fault for this lies primarily with political leaders who set the framework conditions and constraints for the delivery of police services. This commentary is based on the author’s written submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on...

The CBC “Deadly Force” database indicates that the RCMP are 3x more likely to use lethal force than other police forces in Canada. The CBC data found that 68 per cent of people killed in police encounters were suffering with some kind of mental illness, addiction or both. “When we get broader statistical information that...