UPDATE: On Wednesday, April 17, justice minister Mark Furey directed police across NS to suspend street checks of both pedestrians and passengers in vehicles until further notice. The Halifax Board of Police Commissioners put its weight behind ending the practice of street checks at this week’s meeting following Scot Wortley and the NS Human Rights […]
Street Checks
Posted inNews + Opinion
Street check report confirms what Black Haligonians have known for years
Time and time again the stories are told, and time and time again no change has come. For years, Nova Scotia’s Black community has been recounting stories of pain, frustration and fear in its interactions with police. Now, with the release of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission’s report on street checks, African Nova Scotians […]
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What’s behind the street check report delay?
The long-awaited Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission report on carding has been delayed until late March for “several reasons,” Scot Wortley, the project’s sole researcher, told The Coast in an email. The biggest holdups, writes Wortley, are “the vast amount of data that has been collected” and the amount of time it takes to analyze […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Who checks the street checkers?
It was just about this time last year that Halifax Regional Police released a decade’s worth of statistical data on the use of street checks. In the 12 months since the department has repeatedly shown it has a long way to go to combat racial bias both real and perceived in its policing. But while […]
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We didn’t start the (garbage) fire
Lorne Grabher, Jacques Dubé, Jamie Baillie walks away Street check data, Jimmy Melvin, rockets in Canso Robert Bjerke, Lady Drive Her, Sea Bridge floating on the water Cheryl Blossom, Donkin mine, Whitman says “negro” Saltwire buys out Transcon, women march on Washington Moonlight beats out La La Land, Matthew, Bill and Jad are canned David […]
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Policing Black Lives exposes Canada’s history of state violence
As social media defies geographic borders, many Canadians scrolling through their timelines are flogged with anti-Black sentiments coming out of the United States. But before basking in the centuries-old falsehood that Canada is nowhere near as racist as the US, you may want to read Montreal activist and author Robyn Maynard’s debut book, Policing Black […]
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The intentional ignorance of Halifax police street checks
We’ve been here before, many times. On Monday night, Black community members packed into a room at the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church to discuss street checks and racial profiling with researchers from the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. The community meeting was one of a series of three “Starting the Conversation” sessions conducted this week […]
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African Nova Scotian communities form an integral part of our past, present and future
The African Nova Scotian Decade for People of African Descent Coalition welcomes the recent report from the United Nations Group of Working Experts on People of African Descent on its mission to Canada. More than 25 African Nova Scotian organizations presented to the Working Group in October 2016 and are pleased to see many of […]
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Toronto criminology professor hired to study Halifax police street checks
The Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission has hired one of the country’s leading experts on racial bias in policing for an independent review of police street checks. University of Toronto criminology professor Scot Wortley appeared before Halifax Regional Police brass and the city’s Board of Police Commissioners on Monday to answer questions about his upcoming […]
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Police commission to look for new legal rules on street checks
Police commissioner Waye Mason is calling for HRM’s legal team to look into new rules around the department’s use of street checks. On Monday, the city councillor told his colleagues at the Board of Police Commissioners that he’d be making a motion on the matter at its next meeting in September. Mason wants the municipality’s […]
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Halifax police hoping to improve use of street checks
A report before Monday’s meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners is recommending several new efforts to improve the police department’s continued use of street checks. New deputy chief Robin McNeil is planning to oversee a privacy impact assessment and policy review on the controversial practice of collecting data on residents who haven’t committed any […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Impassioned debate on police street checks at north end meeting
“Do you deny institutional racism exists!?” shouts a man, rising to his feet, to cheers and rumblings in a crowd of more than 70 people. There’s a pause. Then Halifax Regional Police chief Jean-Michel Blais responds: “What do you mean by institutional racism?” This is just one of many charged exchanges that broke out during […]