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FRUITS OF DIVERSITY
Black History
Month should be an occasion to celebrate some positive
happenings in and to our community. This month I wish to point out some
fruits that have been born as a consequence of increasing diversity in
positions of power and influence in Canadian society. These developments
point out the obvious: the need to continue to encourage the power brokers
to consider appointing members of diverse communities to positions of power
and influence. We have been
reminded that MP Jean Augustine is the one who sponsored the
adoption of February as a Black History Month in the House of Commons
several years ago. There was no dissent as the House of Commons recognized
February as a Black History Month throughout Canada. You would not have
expected Stephen Harper to have sponsored such a move. It takes your own to
recognize your own. Without Jean Augustine as an MP, Black History Month
may not have been recognized as such at the time this happened several
years ago. Note that I have not said that it would never have happened, I
have said it may not have happened. Perhaps the
most important fruit of diversity is the recent decision by
Judge Juanita Westmoreland-Traore of the Court of Quebec. For the first
time ever in Quebec, Judge Westmoreland-Traore found that the arrest and
charging of a black man by the Montreal police was due to racial profiling
and not due to any reasonable and probable grounds that that black man had
committed a criminal offence. As a consequence of this finding, the small
amount of marihuana that was found on the accused black man, was excluded
as evidence. The accused was acquitted. This is one of very few times in
Canadian history that the finding that racial profiling has occurred led to
the advantage of the accused black person. This decision is a milestone in
criminal law. Judge Westmoreland-Traore is African-Canadian, was once Employment Equity Commissioner
for Ontario and Dean of the Faculty of Law
at Windsor. Westmoreland-Traore is just one of two black judges ever
appointed to the judiciary in Quebec.
Would a lily-white judge have even recognized that racial profiling was involved in that case? Maybe.
It is my thesis that without racial profiling by the police and judges, there would be less minorities going through the Canadian criminal justice system. I am not saying that there aren't criminal elements in minority communities. There are plenty. But no more than in white communities. The overrepresentation of minorities in the criminal justice system is due to racial profiling. The recognition of this phenomenon by the judiciary as did Judge Westmoreland-Traore in R. V. ALEXER CAMPBELL (January 27th, 2005)
hopefully, will go a long way in cautioning police officers against
discriminatory conduct.
Note also that the first major
case that recognized racial profiling was
decided by a Black judge in Nova Scotia ( the case of R. V. RDS). In
that
case, all principal participants, except crown witnesses, were black. That
case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, and it stood for the
importance of the principle of contextualized judging rather than racial
profiling. The concept of racial profiling was a long way in the future
though black lawyers and others had been raising that issue long before
that, but without success.
Member Of:
Criminal Lawyers Association The Law Society Of Upper Canada
Last Modified: August 20, 2007
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