E-Racing Racial Profiling

Abstract

Racial profiling remains a serious and systemic problem in Canada. In 2004, I wrote this article addressing the naysayers - those who denied the systemic existence of the problem - as well as to identify a number of policy and law reform recommendations for addressing the problem. Even though the article is well over a decade old, the recommendations remain relevant today. They include mandatory data collection and anti-racial profiling legislation. I also set out a number of law reform recommendations including:

Recommendation #1: The Supreme Curt of Canada should over-rule R v Ladouceur.

Recommendation #2: Courts must factor in the relevant social context of racial profiling when determining the Charter standards to guide police powers of stop and search.

Recommendation #3: The Crown should bear the onus under section 9 of establishing on a balance of probabilities that a vehicle stop was not the result of racial profiling.

Recommendation #4: All street level criminal investigations should be deemed a detention for section 9 purposes.

Keywords: Racial Profiling, Data Collection, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada, Criminal Procedure