Indigenous Manitoba senator, former judge reveals troubling history of being stopped by police for ‘checks’

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This article was published 08/02/2018 (2776 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Indigenous Manitoba senator and former judge Murray Sinclair says he’s been regularly subjected to police traffic stops to check his driver’s licence, raising the spectre that he’s been the target of racial profiling.

Sinclair, the province’s first Aboriginal judge, revealed the troubling history of traffic stops — while he was on the bench and, more recently, as a member of Parliament’s upper chamber — during a Senate legal committee discussion Wednesday.

The committee is studying Bill C-46, which amends impaired-driving laws in preparation for the legalization of recreational cannabis later this year. The bill will allow police to order blood samples and do roadside drug-impairment tests.

During the session, Quebec Sen. Renée Dupuis questioned a senior Justice Canada official about whether the bill had any protections in place to prevent racial profiling that could arise from granting police additional powers.

Sinclair added that it is a particular concern for Indigenous people.

“When I was a judge, I was stopped by police on an average of twice a year,” he said.

“They always said it was part of their campaign to check for enforcement. They never charged me… but it was interesting that none of my colleagues on the bench were ever stopped by police officers during the 28 years that I was a judge.”

He added that the traffic stops have continued since he was sworn into the Senate in April 2016.

“As a senator, I have been stopped three times by police officers as part of a campaign to check. Last time, though, it was because the officer wanted to take a selfie with me,” he said, prompting laughs from the committee.

Sinclair, who led the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools, declined an interview request Thursday. He did not specify which of the incidents took place in Winnipeg, Ottawa or elsewhere.

Prior to joining the Senate Sinclair, then associate chief judge of Manitoba’s provincial court, co-chaired the province’s three-year-long Aboriginal Justice Inquiry. The 1991 report confirmed the existence of widespread racism in the province’s criminal-justice system — from bail-application denials to higher rates of incarceration — and gained widespread attention across Canada.

In 1991, Sinclair was appointed to Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench, becoming the first Indigenous person to sit on a provincial superior court.

At Wednesday’s committee, Sinclair asked whether Justice Canada had considered monitoring police behaviour through body camera or record-keeping to track who is stopped and where racial profiling is taking place.

The officials said that racial profiling may be part of the training provided to police, and that the issue had been raised by Australian officials regarding the country’s Aboriginal population.

Sinclair asked officials about whether spending allocated to train police officers and for public-safety awareness campaigns will reach “northern Canada, particularly communities where there is a high concentration of Indigenous youth or young people who are, as we know, ones that are likely to be seriously affected by the easier availability of cannabis.”

He also asked if there would be messaging in Indigenous languages so young people “can get advice and direction from the adults in the community, many of whom are still unilingual speakers in their traditional languages.”

Officials said they’d have to find out the answers and get back to the senators.

 

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca