[Fdu] Open Letter on Carding to City and Province from Black Intellectuals, Writers, and Organizers

[Cynthia Wright]

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CITY OF TORONTO AND THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO
FROM BLACK INTELLECTUALS, WRITERS AND ORGANISERS.

On November 17, 2016 the Toronto Police Services Board voted to continue the
practice of Carding in a revised form. The decision by the TPSB represents a
significant impact on the rights of Black, Indigenous, and Brown people, 
as well as
homeless people and other marginalized people in our Toronto community.
In “Known to the Police” the Toronto Star’s ground-breaking analysis of 
street
checks data, better known as carding, it was confirmed that the practice 
of carding
in Toronto disproportionally impacts the lives of Black and Brown men in 
the City of
Toronto. The Star’s analysis dramatically confirmed what Black people 
and Black
activists had been maintaining for many years, that Toronto Police
disproportionately target Black and Brown young people in their street 
checks. In
these street checks the personal information of these young people is
unconstitutionally and illegally gathered and stored in a database for 
unspecified
use in the future.

Many people who have been carded have come forward to explain how the 
practice
of carding robs them not only of their Charter Rights but of their 
dignity as well.
There is growing evidence that the information gathered in the database 
has been
used to deny persons access to resources and jobs for which they would 
have been
otherwise qualified. The corrosive effects of carding, on the lives and 
rights of Black
Canadians in particular, have been a clear signal of their 
marginalization in the City
of Toronto.

The practice of carding is so egregious that the Province of Ontario in 
a recent set of
consultations suggested that it be significantly reformed. We say reform 
is not
enough. Carding not only violates Charter Rights of Black Canadians and 
others, but
carding robs its targets of dignity, bodily integrity, freedom of 
movement and
freedom of assembly, and, makes clear to them that they are not seen as 
necessary
or instrumental parts of the City of Toronto. Carding, as a recent UN 
Special report
confirmed, yet again, after a fact finding visit to a number of cities, 
has an impact on
Black people in Canada that is deeply destructive to their lives.

We the undersigned call on both the Province of Ontario and the City of 
Toronto to
immediately abolish carding, destroy all the data that is the fruit of 
these illegal
detentions and issue an immediate directive to police officers that 
carding cannot be
used in the Province nor the City as an “investigative tool”. We further 
demand that
police officers should be clearly held to account for their behaviour 
when they
violate the human rights of Black, Brown and Indigenous people through the
surreptitious methods of carding.

We make these demands in light of the fact that the citizenship rights 
of Black
Canadians are being violated and indeed made null and void each time a Black
person is carded. The new regulations announced on November 17 on carding
suggest that Black young people now and into the future will be targeted as
collectively and generally suspect because of the colour of their skin. 
The new
regulations confirm the intention of ongoing, sanctioned intrusion into 
the lives of
Black citizens. If we say that young people are our future, then the 
clear message
that carding and data collection and storage send to young people of 
African descent
is that they have no future in this country. The new regulations signal 
open season
on Black life. This is unacceptable in a multiracial and multicultural 
society. In fact,
carding is an abhorrent practice that mars any claim of a just society 
in the Province
of Ontario and the City of Toronto, let alone the country.

Signatories:
Rinaldo Walcott
Dionne Brand
David Chariandy
Olive Senior
Sylvia Hamilton
Pamela Mordecai
Angela Robertson
Carol Allain
Beverly Bain
Debbie Douglas
Richard Fung
Afua Cooper
Katherine McKittrick
Beverley Mullings
Pablo Idahosa
D. Alissa Trotz
Camille Orridge
Dionne Falconer
Andrea Davis
OmiSoore Dryden
Sandy Hudson
Kit Lang
Lali Mohamed
Audrey Dwyer
Christopher Smith
Ellie Ade Kur
Punam Khosla
Ronald Cummings
Ayende Constant
Abdi Osman
Crystal Mark
Rai Reece
Cassandra Lord
Ronald Cummings
Karina Vernon
Kamala Kempadoo
Melanie Newton
Malinda S Smith
Michele Johnson
Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin
Tamari Kitossa
Camille Turner
Warren Chrichlow
Delores V Mullings
Carl James
Honor Ford Smith
Melanie Knight
Anthony Mohamed
Anti-Black Racism Network
Idil Abdillahi
Marieme Lo