“This experience is not new, but because Black Canadians are typically classified under the larger visible minority group, their unique challenges have always been undermined,” says  in the School of Public Policy & Administration, who led the study as part of the Blackness in Canada project.

Nearly 13,000 respondents – both Blacks and non-Blacks – participated in the one-of-its-kind national survey that combined traditional and modern (online / wiki survey) methods of data collection.

The  was released today revealing the study results, while the online survey will be open until June 1.

Within the survey, Black Canadians gave a series of recommendations that they feel would best address systemic racism in the country.  Among them, a call for more educational opportunities for Black Canadians, more anti-racism education in schools, and amendments to the Police Services Act to allow for independent watchdog agencies and harsher penalties for racist conduct by police.

The national survey, which began on March 21, is being conducted by 91��ɫ's Institute for Social Research that Foster leads, in partnership with the  and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Foster is available to discuss the survey results, as well as comment on topics covered in the survey including:

• Black experience during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Racial profiling, police carding and anti-Black racism
• Public policy reform and workplace diversity

Media Contact:

Gloria Suhasini, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 647.463.4354, suhasini@yorku.ca

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, director of the Institute for Social Research at 91��ɫ, has been contracted for the next three years to develop the methodology for Peel police to collect race-based data, analyze the information and report on the findings.

“We are the independent experts coming in, at arms-length and giving them, in the case of Ottawa, some bad news,” said Foster, a professor of public policy and human rights. “We’re coming in to get the data, so we can have an authoritative conversation about community and police relations.”

Unlike the Ottawa project, Foster said his job in Peel is to create a human rights-based data collection system that not only looks at traffic stops but dives deeper into a whole range of police and civilian interactions, including routine interactions with civilians, police stops, arrests and use of force.

“Every single system is going to be under scrutiny, in terms of checking for racial disproportionality and hopefully being able to take some steps to reduce them,” Foster said. “You have to have the data to understand what the gaps and the vulnerabilities are in the system.”

The collection of race-based data follows Peel police’s decision last October to collaborate with the Ontario Human Rights Commission on a legally binding commitment to address systemic racism and discrimination.

Foster’s research also comes amid the ongoing movement calling to “defund” police over an international reckoning about racism and use of force. Peel police are also facing their own public pressure over a series of 2020 incidents in which officers shot or harmed civilians, the majority of them racialized.

Foster said community input is a key part of the process.

“We’re not going to design any methodology until the community is heard from,” he said, adding he has already started holding meetings with Peel police leadership since starting on March 1.

Peel police Deputy Chief Anthony Odoardi said the plan is to report back to the community on interactions and outcomes, but also use it to reshape police interactions with racialized communities.

Last year, Ontario mandated all its police departments to document police use of force — cases in which police had a physical altercation with or pulled a weapon on a civilian — including the race of an individual against whom force was used.

In those cases, officers must now fill out a use-of-force report that asks them to record race from a list of seven ethnic categories.

The reports are filed with the Ministry of the Solicitor General, which oversees policing.

“We’re collecting data in the most traditional means,” Odoardi said of the use-of-force reports, which Peel police started using in January.

Foster’s project will go much deeper.

He will once again be teaming up with fellow researcher , Ontario Tech University’s new vice-president of research and innovation, who also worked with Foster on studies of police in Ottawa and Windsor. In Windsor, the duo did a human rights-led analysis of the police service’s more than 200 policies, offering recommendations on which needed tweaking, including a scan of the workforce to address gaps in female representation and set about increasing hiring.

Odoardi said the team will be looking at how Peel police can more “meaningful collect race-based data across all interactions and not just one siloed approach through use of force.”

Peel is already being held up as a template other services can duplicate.

Odoardi said Devon Clunis, Canada’s first Black police chief and Ontario’s first inspector general of policing, is looking to Peel to set a precedent on race-based data collection.

“We have the backing of the new inspector general to go ahead and look at this as a guiding document for all police agencies and for his office,” Odoardi said.

Odoardi said it was important to bring Foster and Jacobs in because they had a head start and track record for the type of work required.

Foster did two studies in Ottawa between 2013 and 2019. His study of more than 120,000 traffic stops done by Ottawa police over two years showed that drivers who were Black or Middle Eastern were stopped at disproportionately higher rates.

The report found that in 2017-2018, Middle Eastern drivers were stopped more than three times more often than what you would expect based on their segment of the driving population, while Black drivers were stopped more than twice as much.

“We put in place a system, where they have to eliminate, by 20 per cent, every year, those disproportionalities,” Foster noted of what he said is the incremental change that’s underway in Ottawa.

As a result, the Ottawa Police Service created a multi-year action plan to address the racial disparity.

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The event will take place Jan. 13, from 2:30 to 5pm, on the 5th Floor of the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) Building, Keele campus. In addition, there will be some short remarks at 3:30pm in 5084 TEL Building, at the south end of the hallway. Refreshments will be served.

The open house will showcase faculty- and student-led research projects, along with short presentations by researchers.

The LaMarsh Centre conducts interdisciplinary research in health, education, relationships and development of infants, children, adolescents, emerging adults and families. Its particular focus is on the health and well-being of Canada’s youth, preventing youth violence and promoting positive development. The aim is to foster a centre of learning, productivity and exchange for new and senior scholars and to create a critical mass of related research activity.

The YIHR takes a determinants approach to health research with sub-areas including diversity and health, health equity and social justice, health and the environment, health law and ethics, health care and health governance. YIHR draws together a range of social, biomedical, environmental and behavioural scientists, as well as researchers from business, law, education and the physical sciences, bridging the divide between the sciences and social sciences to deliver real-world solutions.

The houses the largest university-based survey centre in Canada, conducting major surveys on population health, education, gender, the environment and voting behaviour. It conducts more than 25 survey research projects annually, as well as a range of qualitative research, including focus group studies. ISR staff complete all stages of the survey research process from questionnaire design, sample selection and data collection to the preparation of machine-readable data files, statistical analysis and report writing.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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In fact, a report for the Ontario legal regulator, the Law Society of Upper Canada, says it’s changing “dramatically”. What isn’t changing though is the ability of women and visible minorities to crack the pay scale to the same extent as white males.

Ironically, the research is based on the 2006 long-form census, which the federal government wants to modify by increasing the number of long forms sent to people, but eliminating the mandatory nature of replying. The proposed changes have caused a ruckus in Ottawa [and with 91��ɫ faculty members].

The study by Michael Ornstein, a sociology professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and director of the, shows the value of the long-form census for researchers. His report found there has been a “dramatic increase” in the number of lawyers who are visible minorities. Today they make up 11.5 per cent of lawyers practising in Ontario, compared with 9.2 per cent in 2001. That’s still well below the 23 per cent of the population provincially that comprises minorities, and below the 30 per cent of those with university degrees, suggesting there’s still a long way to go.

Ornstein’s report says the “progress of visible minority lawyers can be seen in the dramatic increases in the percentage of lawyers between the ages of 25 and 34.” While in 1981 they accounted for two per cent of the profession, today they account for 20 per cent. “This trend will continue as older, predominantly white lawyers retire,” Ornstein writes in his April report.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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