Four years ago Murray Rankin, who was MP for Victoria, BC at the time, tabled a private member’s bill to completely expunge criminal records for anyone convicted of simple drug possession. Finally, this past week, the Federal Liberals agreed with NDP justice critic Randall Garrison’s proposal to amend Bill C-5 to incorporate Rankin’s original proposal. […]
The family of Regis Korchinski-Paquet has filed a $10 million lawsuit against several police officers and the head of Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) more than two years after the 29-year-old woman fell to her death from the balcony of her home in Toronto. Also named as defendants in the lawsuit filed last week are […]
By Lincoln DePradine Jamaal Myers, a corporate lawyer, is giving up his position as a legal counsel with a major Canadian bank to run for a seat as a local councillor in Toronto because he says, “Toronto’s in trouble’’. The “trouble’’ confronting the city, according to Myers, includes a lack of affordable housing and […]
Reform or defunding? Would Andrew Loku, Sammy Yatim, Marc Ekamba and many other Black people be alive today, if not for the colour of their skin? We ask the question as police behaviour once more comes under scrutiny with last Wednesday apology to the Black community by Interim Toronto Police Chief James Ramer. As we […]
On April 23, 2018 Alek Minassian drove a van down a Yonge Street sidewalk packed with pedestrians. When his three kilometre rampage ended, 11 persons died while 15 others suffered life shattering injuries. It was one of Canada’s worst crimes ever committed. Even as Justice Anne Malloy acknowledged the defence argument that Minassian suffered from […]
Interim Toronto Police Chief James Ramer made his statements and answered questions yesterday on their race-based data and the next steps forward. The police chief confessed to the over-policing of Blacks and Indigenous peoples of Toronto. At news conference, he said: “I am sorry and I apologize unreservedly.” The data served to prove the allegations […]
Toronto’s Black residents received an apology yesterday from James Ramer, the city’s interim police chief, at a news conference as the force released race-based data showing disproportionate use of force on them. “As an organization, we have not done enough to ensure that every person in our city receives fair and unbiased policing,” Ramer […]
A year after he was hired to tackle racial profiling in the Montreal police force, Alain Babineau has resigned, saying he was “never well received,” and citing “a lot of resistance” from the force’s management, and the police union. “Police culture is extremely resistant to change, it doesn’t matter what the changes are,” said Babineau, […]
I’m honoured to join you here today, and I acknowledge that we are gathered on the territory of the Secwépemc Nation, specifically the territory of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc. I also open my heart to the survivors who are with us today, and to the families and communities that suffered generational trauma from the many […]
“As a black person who lives in a very white world, I knew to never be angry.” When I think about political rage, I think about who gets to be angry, who even gets to express rage and who automatically stifles it because we know that in some way it’s not allowed. There are so […]
