By Neil Armstrong
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| Photo contributed Knia Singh, Co-chair of the Know Your Rights Committee |
A Toronto lawyer says the Toronto Police Service has reached a point where the most senior officers have acknowledged the existence of racial profiling and systemic racism -- instead of denying them as was prevalent in the past -- and are working with the community.
Knia Singh is appealing to those grassroots organizers who have been fighting for generations for reform in policing to take this opportunity to push for change in a very fruitful and methodical way.
“I’m just saying now is the time to seek the change you want because there’s an appetite for change, and positive change.”
Singh is the co-chair of the Know Your Rights committee that recently launched a campaign of the Toronto Police Service (TPS) and the Police and Community Engagement Review (PACER) Committee.
A video was released on January 29 in the first phase of the Know Your Rights campaign which aims to inform the public about their legal rights and a police officer’s responsibilities during various types of engagements.
As someone who had encounters with the police in the past, Singh says this initiative would have given him the actual knowledge that he needed to ensure that he was safe during those interactions.
“Luckily, at a very young age, I paid attention to rights and interactions with police and I always knew that there were limitations on what information could be gathered.”
He remembers many times being stopped by the police before carding was forefront in the media and before the regulation when officers would ask him where he was going or coming from.
“I would respond, that’s my private, personal information, I’m not going to disclose that. I knew I could do that. Other people, generally, would think they have to answer every question by an officer and then disclose certain things that may end up getting them in trouble,” says Singh. A few years ago, he filed a freedom of information request for any records police might keep on him and received several pages documenting encounters – none of which was for anything criminal.
Singh, the principal lawyer at Ma’at Legal Services, says if this campaign had been around when he was younger, it would have also given him confidence that the police were aware of what their responsibilities were with the public and that the public would know them.
“If the police are going to violate your rights, they rely on your ignorance to violate them. This campaign takes away that ignorance for anyone who takes the time to observe it. It’s a much more powerful, fruitful and fair, equitable interaction when both sides understand what the rules are they’re playing under.”
Due to the disproportionate stops of Black, racialized and Indigenous people in Toronto and elsewhere in Ontario the provincial government created Regulation 58/16 – the “street check” regulation. It prohibits the arbitrary collection of identifying information by police, referred to as carding. Arbitrary means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any legally permissible reason.
The video shows interim police chief, James Ramer, acknowledging systemic racism and racial profiling, and the early message from the Know Your Rights Committee and PACER is telling viewers positive interactions are possible.
“It’s basically being cordial in your interactions will ensure or at least gets you closer to a positive outcome.
Singh notes that carding had always been illegal, but the declaration by the province that it was banned happened in January 2017.
Back in 2016, the police and the PACER Committee were in the process of planning the campaign and even had a script ready, however, the release of the final product was delayed.
When Ramer became the interim chief, after the resignation of Chief Mark Saunders, he struck up the PACER 2.0 Committee “to get back on these issues to ensure certain things that were planned before are done now,” says Singh.
He says the revival of the campaign is Ramer’s desire to see PACER continue to contribute to police-community relations.
In 2012, under Chief of Police William (Bill) Blair, the Chief’s Internal Organizational Review examined all aspects of community engagement, leading to the creation of the Police and Community Engagement Review committee. Former deputy chief, Peter Sloly, now the chief of police in Ottawa, was the executive sponsor of PACER.
After internal and external consultations, the PACER committee submitted a report with 31 recommendations intended to address bias-free delivery of policing services.
One recommendation called for the creation of an advisory committee, comprised equally of TPS members from all areas of the organization and community members and partner agencies invested in improving relations between police and the city’s Black communities. The PACER committee dedicated hours to ensuring the appropriate and thorough implementation of all 31 recommendations and continues to advise the TPS on matters of fair and equitable delivery of policing.
In 2020, the Toronto Police Services Board approved 81 recommendations for police reform in a report entitled “Police Reform in Toronto: Systemic Racism, Alternative Community Safety and Crisis Response Models and Building New Confidence in Public Safety.”
“These recommendations established a roadmap for comprehensive policing reform in Toronto, and include building new community safety response models, various initiatives to address systemic racism and concrete steps to improve trust with our communities,” notes the TPS website.
As a result of these 81 recommendations, Chief Ramer reconvened the Police and Community Engagement Review (PACER) as PACER 2.0.
One of the recommendations directed the chief of police to develop and execute a multi-faceted "know your rights" campaign and a Know Your Rights sub-committee of PACER 2.0 was created with the mandate to “inform the community what their legal rights are in their interactions with police.”
“Know Your Rights gives communities the tools to demystify dialogue with our police officers, and clarifies the misperceptions that all parties may bring to all types of engagement,” says Ramer.
He says the TPS is grateful to “our PACER community partners for their guidance in helping us to meet communities where they are, and we look forward to more work together.”
Meanwhile, Singh says the campaign is trying to reach everybody but the target market, in his opinion, would be young people and police officers.
“It seems that a lot of negative interactions or carding or collection of information take place amongst marginalized communities, specifically African descendant and Indigenous communities, and more narrowly younger people.”
He notes that if they were to go with a hierarchy of needs they would want those targeted people affected by the practice the most to be exposed to this and the police because the police are reminded of their responsibilities and obligations through this campaign as well.
There will be billboards, online messages, social media messages, public service announcements, radio spots as part of the campaign and they are entering phase three in which they are engaging community groups and young people who were involved in feedback from the first round of surveys.
“We are going to be doing another set of videos that speak to different scenarios, not just Regulation 58/16 and carding, but it’s going to be body-worn camera, search of your vehicles and other aspects of everyday life that the public wants clarity on,” says Singh, noting that a lot of outreach is being done. At the end of May, they would have completed phase two and be moving into phase three towards the beginning of June.
The lawyer believes that when someone is armed with knowledge there is the ability to have a more fruitful conversation and outcome.
He says community members are not exposed to the legal information or rights that they have and even when they exercise those rights there is a high instance of violating those rights.
“We know so many times stories of police abuse on the community so this campaign is going to change that in the sense that the community now has something to point to, as before when they would not be clear.”
Unfortunately, marginalized communities don’t have the financial resources to always retain lawyers who are going to fight cases on their behalf so they’re left with fighting it on their own, which can be intimidating and could have a non-successful outcome, says Singh.
He says by virtue of the campaign that part is cut out because at the end of the video it tells people how to make a complaint if they have been violated. They can contact the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, or the Toronto Police Service.
“A lot of the rights contained in the Know Your Rights campaign can avoid a large amount of discrepancies, charges and violations. So we really believe that as a Black community experiencing this for centuries and decades, now there’s finally something to point to that can make someone feel secure.
“It’s going to be reliant on understanding your rights, articulating them and then when they’re violated making a complaint, because, unfortunately, violations may and will still happen. That’s just the reality. What’s more important is that those violations be noted, identified and held accountable because if we know that violations are taking place and we don’t complain they will never be remedied, we’re only partially fixing the problem, we’re not fixing it fully.”
Singh says once things get to the stage where people are held accountable for violations and there are sufficient sanctions then the Black community and Indigenous community, in particular, will be able to feel more confident in moving forward.
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| Photo contributed Yvette Blackburn of the PACER 2.0 and its Know Your Rights sub-committee |
Acknowledging the problems Black, Indigenous and raciaiized communities have had with policing in Toronto in the past, Singh says, “we should be aware that the Toronto Police has a large and a good section of officers whowant to do right and make things right,” and he thinks, “we have to utilize those positives to hold those officers who do not uphold the law and who violate people accountable.”
Amadou Mukuna, aka Silas, 24, says this is a very important move and he would feel safer because of the knowledge shared in the campaign.
“I just feel, like, a lot of times when you’re just around police, you just feel, like, you’re in trouble. And I think just like knowing that you’re allowed to leave or knowing that you’re allowed to ask certain questions, even if they are the bully in the situation, sometimes people not knowing their rights, that hinders them in that situation,” says the owner of a street wear clothing line.
He says knowledge what civilians can ask and do in those interactions with police would prevent people from incriminating themselves.
Yvette Blackburn, Canadian representative of the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council, GJDC, is also a member of the PACER 2.0 Committee, co-chaired by Superintendent Stacy Clarke and Audrey Campbell, a former president of the Jamaican Canadian Association.
She says citizens need to start holding the police to account and let them have a clear understanding that there are consequences for violating their rights.
Blackburn says the police service “is doing the work and officers have made an about-turn, they’re being held to account, they’re holding each other to account.”
“You see the procedures are changing, you’re seeing the different protocols that are being put in place, you see the accountability that’s been put in by Toronto Police Service, and some of the people that are being put in positions of supervision that are going to hold their own colleagues to account. So, a lot is happening and it’s going to happen and you have really good people – the citizens and the officers that sit on PACER,” she says.
Under the leadership of co-chairs Inspector Kelly Skinner and Singh, the sub-committee of PACER 2.0 responsible to deliver this campaign also includes Jennifer Chambers, executive director of the Empowerment Council, Stephen Linton, Stephen McCammon, legal counsel at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario,and Blackburn.
The Know Your Rights campaign video is available on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok.
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