Mayor John Tory maintains carding needs reforming, not ending

After dozens of prominent Torontonians stood just steps from John Tory (open John Tory's policard)’s second-floor city hall office to demand an end to carding, the mayor said he heard their message “very clearly.”

But on Wednesday, Tory refused to join that call, instead doubling down on his position that the practice needs reforming, not shelving.

“Work has continued virtually non-stop on improving the procedure which governs police-community engagements and relations, and though it is a complex issue I think all sides acknowledge that we are making progress,” Tory said at a press conference held inside his office. “I have always maintained that the recently-passed policy is a beginning not an end.”

Tory insisted that there needs to be a policy in place to dictate how police interact with members of the public, but said newly-appointed Chief Mark Saunders are committed to “narrowing” the number of “random” encounters with people on Toronto’s streets.

“We want police to talk to people, but what we don’t want is innocent people who feel themselves in some way obstructed in going about their lives by having police stop them when they don’t have to be stopped,” he said.

A Star investigation showed that black and brown people, and specifically young men, are far more likely to be stopped and carded by police, despite not having committed any crime, in every neighbourhood in this city.

Since then, community advocates and prominent Torontonians have been calling for an end to the practice they call racial profiling and an abuse of fundamental human rights.

Though that practice, which has become known as “carding,” is currently suspended, a new procedures developed by police would see it continue without the police board’s requests for transparency — including the need to explain a citizen’s rights during stops.

The group of prominent Torontonians that gathered at city hall on Wednesday morning include many of Tory’s backers — including three who publicly endorsed Tory during his campaign, two who were placed on his transition team and his campaign co-chair, well-known Liberal organizer Bob Richardson.

“We all need to oppose carding vehemently. We resent its debilitating impact on our friends and neighbours,” reads the letter signed by 54 notable citizens. “It sends a message of hopelessness to young people with black or brown skin. We cannot and will not accept this for any group or community in our city.”

The letter specifically urged Tory, Saunders and board chair Alok Mukherjee to stop carding “immediately.”

“We do not want a new generation of youth, particularly black and brown youth, to have to go through this experience,” former city councillor Gordon Cressy told the Star earlier. “It’s diminishing and demeaning, and it leaves scars.”