MPP Jagmeet Singh calls on the Liberal Government for a province-wide strategy against carding

Queen’s Park –  Today in the legislature, Jagmeet Singh, Deputy Leader for the Ontario NDP called for a provincial strategy to stop the practice of carding by police agencies.

“Today I rise to address the issuing of carding. Carding is the procedure or process by where police officer stop individuals, question them, and collect that information. Most often these individuals are not under a specific investigation. They are not arrested nor are they eventually charged. This is simply an attempt to collect information.

In fact, what makes this such a horrible process is that it targets racialized people. A 2013 report indicated that of all the people carded in Toronto, 25% of the people were black, even though black people make up only 8.5% of the population. This is a specific targeting of rationalized people. The Law Union points out that both black and brown people are specifically targeted and they are made to feel unwelcome in society.

Desmond Cole wrote a very telling article and shared his experiences being stopped numerous times, and how that impacts one’s sense of feeling and belonging in society and how it negatively impacts that.

I, myself, have experienced carding. I have been stopped numerous times. I assure you I was not doing anything wrong whatsoever. I was stopped while I was riding my bike; I was stopped while walking down the street. It is a practice that the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has denounced and demanding its end.

I stand here today in the House requesting and calling on this government to put forward a provincial policy on this practice to end this practice. This is a violation not only of our human rights, of our charter rights, but our fundamental freedoms. It’s something that must be ended.” (Hansard, 2015)

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