To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:
Whereas on May 27, 2020, Regis Korchinski-Paquet’s mother called 911 for police assistance during a family dispute. Within minutes of the police arriving, Regis ended up deceased on the ground 24 floors below. A call for assistance ended in death;
Whereas the provincial government has a responsibility to ensure all residents are safe and will not be subject to differential treatment by law enforcement based on race, religion or mental state;
Whereas a report by the Ontario Human Rights Commission ... titled Under Suspicion: Concerns About Racial Profiling by Police found that case law recognizes that racial profiling is a systemic problem in policing;
Whereas in an interim report, A Collective Impact, the OHRC found that Black people are grossly over-represented in cases involving police use of force that results in serious injury or death. Despite making up only 8.8% of Toronto’s population, Black people were over-represented in use of force cases (28.8%), shootings (36%), deadly encounters (61.5%) and fatal shootings (70%), and 20 times more likely to be shot by police;
Whereas Black, Indigenous, and Racialized communities have called for Ontario to reform the Special Investigations Unit process to ensure that it is independent and truly accountable for decades.
