Shocking News:Black Action Defence Committee Suing Toronto police for $65 Million Dollars!!!
Toronto Police Services Board Chair Alok Mukherjee has made recommendations on changes to carding, to be discussed at a public meeting Monday Nov. 18.
By: Jim Rankin Feature reporter, Patty Winsa News reporter, Published on Sat Nov 16 2013
A proposed class-action lawsuit seeks $65 million in damages and other remedies from Toronto police for alleged racial profiling practices and documenting of citizens.
The suit, filed Friday by the Black Action Defence Committee, comes in advance of a special Toronto Police Services Board meeting to be held Monday on the controversial police practice of carding — encounters where police question citizens and document personal details in stops that typically involve no arrest or charge.
Police Chief Bill Blair and the civilian police services board are named as defendants in the suit, which alleges police and the board have failed to adequately address a problem that has impacted blacks and other minority groups for decades.
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The committee seeks to have the suit certified as a class action, and have itself named as the representative plaintiff, but it estimates there are hundreds and “perhaps thousands” of citizens who would fit into the class.
“The Plaintiff believes the only way to litigate and seek remedies to uproot the acknowledged scourge of racial profiling and carding is a frontal attack” like a class-action suit, reads the statement of claim. “There is no other effective way.”
The suit alleges police and the board “have failed to prevent the violation of the equality rights of African-Canadian residents of Toronto and Ontario,” resulting in discrimination under the Charter.
Police have not had a chance to respond to the proposed suit. They defend the practice of carding citizens as a valuable investigative tool that allows investigators to make links between people and places, and say they target areas where violent crime is taking place.
But they also have acknowledged carding interactions with citizens can harm their relationship with the public.
There has been talk of a class-action lawsuit on the issue for decades, said Toronto lawyer Munyonzwe Hamalengwa, who filed the suit on behalf of the committee and spoke on its behalf.
After many reports by academics, the media and court decisions, the police and board “haven’t done anything to address this at all,” so the committee is hoping a class-action lawsuit will allow for a “holistic comprehensive judicial remedy” to carding and racial profiling.
“The black community has now reached a point where talking has been going on, not much has been happening, so it’s time for action,” said Hamalengwa.
In addition to monetary damages, the action, which has not been certified or proven in court, seeks remedies that include:
A declaration that police have breached the Charter and an order requiring them to “desist from engaging in and condoning racial profiling” of blacks and other “colourful” minorities.
A declaration that racial profiling is a criminal offence.
A written police apology to the committee and “all African-Canadians for their being targets and victims of racial profiling and carding.”
Mandatory reading for officers, including books on racial profiling, the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s 2003 report “Paying the price: The human cost of racial profiling,” the 1995 report of the Ontario Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System, and several Toronto Star series on carding, including 2003 report “Paying the price: The human cost of racial profiling,” published in September.
Class-action lawsuits in Canada can be expensive and lengthy and orders difficult to come by, but as Toronto lawyer Murray Klippenstein recently told the Star in a story about carding, they can prompt change.
“By declaring a practice to be illegal and awarding a significant amount of money to a group of people as compensation, the incentive or pressure to change the practice becomes pretty substantial,” he said.
The Star has published four series — in 2002, 2010, 2012 and 2013 — that examined Toronto police arrest and stop data and found patterns that shown disproportionate treatment for blacks, and to a lesser extent, “brown”-skinned people.
Between 2008 and 2012, police filled out 1.8 million contact cards, involving over a million individuals, and entered their personal details into a database.
A Star analysis showed that blacks over that period were more likely than whites to be stopped, questioned and documented in each of the city’s 70-plus police patrol zones. The likelihood increased in areas that were predominantly white.
On Monday, the special public police services board meeting on carding, scheduled to be held at city hall, will address recommendations from both the police and board chair Alok Mukherjee to change the way police card and interact with the public. Mukherjee has said the Star’s latest findings on contact cards “devastating” and “unacceptable.”
While there has been an acknowledgement by Blair and the board that profiling exists and that carding is problematic, the lawsuit alleges little has changed to deal with it.
Although no individuals are named as plaintiffs, Hamalengwa expects many will come forward and take part.
Robyn Doolittle Talks About Rob Ford Crack Video Homophobic & Racist Comments.
The Rob Ford Circus at Toronto City Hall about the crack video has ignored an important component, and that is what Ford actually said on the video. According to Robyn Doolittle a Toronto Star reporter who watched the video Ford uttered racist and homophobic comments. Ford called Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau a “fag” he also made a disparaging comment about “fucking minorities”. Is this what the people of Toronto want a racist and homophobic mayor?
Obnoxious Mayor Rob Ford & Press Argument On His property.
Once again, Rob Ford makes a fool of himself after the police chief Bill Blair announces a crack video does exist. Blair has seen the video, and despite Ford’s lies his days are numbered as mayor of Canada’s largest city. Ford says he will not resign but he is a disgrace to all Canadians. Ford has a serious attitude problem and a sense of entitlement. Ford is acting as though he is some victim when he is not. If Ford had any class he would resign. Since Ford has no class he has the audacity to believe he can be mayor. Even right wing conservative media are not supporting Ford anymore. Ford connections to a drug dealer are serious. How can people take Ford seriously? Ford needs to go away and disappear he is such a joke.
Sign Petition To Have Toronto Police Officer James Forcillo Charged With Murder For Killing Sammy Yatim!!!!
Please sign the petition police officer James Forcillo should be charged with murder! Over 30,000 people have already signed the petition let your voices be heard spread the word!
Toronto Police Officers believe they are ABOVE THE LAW they can just go around shooting and killing people and getting away with it!
Police brutality is swept under the rug in Toronto due to the Toronto media ignoring the racism and the prejudice of the police force! I saw the video Sammy Yatim was brutally murdered he was shot nine times! Why? Why did James Forcillo shoot Sammy Yatim nine times? It was excessive force! Do not let the Toronto Police force get away with murder and police brutality! Sign the petition people spread the word!!!
Toronto Star Slams Arrogant Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Says He Is A Disgrace & Should Be Thrown Out Of Office!!!
Rob Ford has made a fool of his supporters
What is there left to say about Rob Ford, a man so befuddled be can make good deeds look bad?
The mayor’s performance in court this week was a personal humiliation for him, a disgrace for the city.
What emerged was a portrait of man whose only defence is his own self-professed ignorance.
Whether Ford is as profoundly unaware of the world as he lets on is something the judge will have to decide, but faced with potentially career-ending conflict-of-interest charges, the mayor either had nothing to say or couldn’t remember.
Indeed, it has become frighteningly clear that the man elected to run the largest city in Canada has the attention span of a gnat, and even less curiosity.
He has no apparent understanding of something as basic as the law, let alone conflict of interest. In his mind, good intentions, as long as they are his own, are enough.
That’s why Rob Ford must go. Even if Justice Charles Hackland of the Ontario Superior Court were to dismiss the charges, the mayor has squandered the moral authority needed to run and represent the city.
Ford, who has made no secret of his contempt for process, can no longer continue as mayor.
Though Hackland won’t have to worry about a pattern of behaviour that goes back to the beginning of Ford’s career, the public will be more nuanced in its conclusions.
Ford has made a fool of his supporters, as much as himself. His indifference to rules of conduct comes out of his indifference to the larger political system — democracy itself, which he seems to assume means being popular.
Some worry that the judge ought not to interfere in something as sacred as democratic values, but that’s precisely why he must.
Ignorance itself isn’t illegal, of course, but when it’s so willful and brazen, it cannot go unchallenged. We have no choice but to question the chief magistrate’s decision to remain in a state of intellectual darkness when it affects his ability to fulfill his duties.
On the other hand, this is no MFP scandal. This case isn’t about greed or corruption. In fact, no one has ever accused Ford of being corrupt: He isn’t and doesn’t need to be.
As laudable as his motives might have been, however, his methods were anything but. Hitting up city hall lobbyists for one’s personal charity is obviously unacceptable — not to mention stupid — even if the reason was to “save kids’ lives.”
Ford then ignored repeated requests from Toronto’s integrity commissioner to repay the money, and spoke and voted at the council meeting debating the issue
The mayor’s largely legalistic defence has skirted the real issue — Ford’s unwillingness and/or inability to play by the rules.
But that’s why his supporters love him; he’s the anti-politician come in from the cold to rewrite the game. Guilty or not, he can’t lose. In their eyes, he’s forever innocent.
Ford’s fans forget that he is a politician, and after 12 years on council, a veteran, a careerist, son of a politician and brother to another.
Hackland’s judgment won’t be handed down for weeks; in the meantime, Ford has been rendered impotent, his mayoralty irrelevant. City council long ago wrested control of the agenda from his office, so his absence, real or political, will have little impact.
On the other hand, Ford’s unprecedented crassness has left city hall in a place it’s never been before.
Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca
Now Magazine Article: Toronto`s Mayor Rob Ford Is A Bully Yet Playing The Victim In Conflict Of Interest Trial.
For anyone but political junkies and the City Hall press corps dressed in their Sunday best, the deliberations that got under way Wednesday, September 5, in courtroom 6-1 at 361 University to determine if Mayor Rob Ford broke conflict of interest rules must have seemed anticlimactic.
All the media hoopla about the possibility of his getting turfed from office for some curious financial dealings involving his charity football foundation raised expectations of high courtroom drama.
But along with the technical arguments led by his legal team, the sight of Ford taking the stand in his own defence in that sorry tie he often wears at stressful moments like these was more pitiable than great political theatre.
The mayor cut a sorry figure, at times barely audible in his responses, making some of us wonder if he’d reached into the medicine cabinet for the Rescue Remedy this morning to take the edge off. The bellicose bully was nowhere to be seen.
Whether that was by design, to win a little sympathy, I’ll leave for the judge to decide.
But the narrative of this latest controversy to swirl around the perpetually embattled mayor is more complicated than the one the Fordists have been spinning.
If there was a conflict, they say, it was inadvertent, and all for a good cause anyway – namely, to help disadvantaged kids by buying football equipment.
The big question on everyone’s mind: is Rob Ford toast?
It doesn’t look good for Rofo. At least not on paper. The case against him, that he contravened the Municipal Conflict Of Interest Act by speaking to and then voting on a matter in council in which he had a financial interest – to wit, donations by lobbyists to his football foundation – is black-and-white.
Check the 147-page transcript of the deposition he gave a few months back in preparation for this trial. It’s so full of BS that a casual observer might think the mayor had Peter Gabriel playing on a loop in his head. (“I don’t remember, I don’t recall, I got no memory of anything at all.”)
Rob doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on. There was a direct financial interest involved: the $3,150 in donations to his foundation he was ordered to repay by the city’s integrity commissioner, but refused to come up with.
But it would take a very brave judge to impose the maximum penalty prescribed by law: removal from office and being barred from running for office for seven years. On the latter, the judge has discretion. So the mayor could conceivably get the axe but be allowed to run again in a by-election.
Lost in translation
Just how egregious was Ford’s transgression? The official line that the conflict charges against the mayor are politically motivated, an evil plot concocted by the left to take the man of the people away from his people, has coloured most of the mainstream media coverage. The Sun ran a story Monday, September 3, suggesting that straws are being drawn and lefty Joe Mihevc is being touted as a possible replacement. News to Citizen Joe.
When Team Ford hasn’t been playing the left conspiracy theory angle, the message track has been that the mayor doesn’t benefit from donations made by lobbyists to his football foundation, so how could there be a conflict?
But whether the mayor benefited financially is not so clear cut. He definitely gains politically from his foundation, that’s for sure, and doesn’t that result in a personal advantage? In April, he attended a public presentation of a fat cheque from the foundation to buy football equipment for the kids at Mother Theresa High School.
Let’s look at the facts. The donations in question were – and here’s the really iffy issue – made by lobbyists. And not just any lobbyists, but people doing business with the city. The court could view their donations as attempts to curry favour and get Ford to reciprocate by supporting their pet projects at council. Where I come from, that’s called a shakedown. Ford doesn’t seem to get that, or is simply playing dumb on the point. He has his own definition of what constitutes a conflict, and that is anything that benefits the city. Yup. You’re reading that right.
Was the mayor selling votes?
Ford apparently also solicited funds for his foundation from citizens vying for appointments to city agencies, boards and commissions. This is where the issue of his using city letterhead to cop said donations, which on its face might seem only a technical breach of the rules, becomes very problematic. His missives could be construed as intimidation – as in “If you don’t give, you won’t get Ford’s vote to sit on this or that board.” Those who complained to the integrity commissioner about receiving these letters reported feeling strong-armed.
What’s never been fully explained
Why has the entity that administers Ford’s foundation, the Toronto Community Foundation, accounted for only $37,294.68 in donations to the charity when the mayor has claimed more than $100,000 in donations on his website?
When asked about that during his deposition, Ford stammered, “That was inaccurate. I was probably saying it would be that much. It could total that much. It could in five or six… the years to come. I could easily fundraise that much money for it.”
More to the legal point
How could someone like Ford, who’s been in politics for more than a decade, pretend to be so ignorant of conflict rules? There’s a handbook. Councillors sign a declaration after they take office that they will “faithfully and impartially” exercise their duties and “disclose any pecuniary interest, direct or indirect, in accordance with the Municipal Conflict Of Interest Act.”
It’s not a formality. It’s a sworn statement, a promise to the public, signed in front of the city clerk. It’s the mayor’s duty to understand conflict guidelines.
Ford can’t argue that he didn’t understand the rules.
In the past, he’s excused himself from votes, declaring a conflict on some of the most mundane matters, including changes to parking times on the street where the family business in located.
The mayor received six letters from the integrity commissioner ordering him to pay back the money. He ignored every one of them.
Who wins?
Certainly not council’s left if Ford gets the boot. The last thing progressive forces want is to go into an election defending what looks like an attempt by the left to hijack the democratic process. Ford has already begun playing the spunky victim card, saying that if he’s bounced he’ll run again.
Who loses?
As attractive as the prospect of seeing Ford rousted from office may seem, a by-election to replace him would further divide a city whose council is just beginning to assert its authority despite constant distractions by the mayor.
Epilogue
The audit of his campaign expenses, another court date awaiting the mayor, may prove more problematic politically.
But in terms of the conservative brand and those charged with protecting it, i.e., the power brokers behind the scenes with agendas bigger than Ford’s re-election, there’ll be much to think about. Like whether or not the mayor has become a serious embarrassment and if it’s time to back another horse.
The wider public that voted for Ford seems to be taking note, and some of his friends in the usually favourable media, too, have begun to openly address the possibility of an exit, however remote. Former Ford insiders are chatting up a storm behind the scenes that can only mean one thing: more negative publicity is in the offing.
Team Ford seems to be smelling a change in the air. Two years from the next election, the mayor’s peeps are already in re-election mode, trotting out the mayor in the company of his family at the Ex and on summer vacation in Edmonton. The polling to identify unfriendly councillors he can topple in 2014 has already begun. But there’ll be more storms to weather before then. And by that time there won’t be much left of his Teflon coating.
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