You are likely familiar with how non-democratic countries persecute, punish, and imprison all dissenting voices, like activists and journalists, without ever detailing the reasons for doing so. If an “explanation” is offered up, it always ends up being something frivolous and baseless that judges in those places are eager to go along with. “Integrity” is a foreign concept when it comes to the function of such courts in non-democratic countries, it is an idea that is diametrically opposed and absent across such systems. So, how would we react if that same “non-democratic standard” began to trickle over into courts across Canada, or what if it was already here? Because our courts seem to be adopting police state-like tendencies, and the people being affected by it are now individuals working in policing.
Courts Taking Police State-like Positions
A recent ruling by Ontario’s highest court determined that a racialized applicant who missed out on an employment opportunity because he failed a background check, despite having previously worked in policing and without any criminal history, was not entitled to know the details of his background check. The racialized applicant left his job as special constable at the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) to pursue an employment opportunity at Metrolinx. At Metrolinx, however, he was told he was ineligible to work there because his background check received an unsatisfactory score. An application to work as a police officer with the Toronto Police Service (TPS) resulted in another unsatisfactory score. After exhausting those two potential opportunities, the TCHC also informed him that he was no longer fit to return to his old job and work as a special constable, solely on the basis of an unsatisfactory background score.
Here is the catch, Ontario’s courts ruled that he was not privy to the information that resulted in him failing a background check, nor should he be allowed to dispute the findings. The court’s excuse was that allowing him would open a flood gate of individuals looking to dispute unsatisfactory scores that could burden the institution of policing. However, Khorsand v. Toronto Police Service Board, pales in comparison to a lawsuit out of Ottawa that is before the courts. That lawsuit involves five Somali-Canadian police officers who were secretly wiretapped for months, with no charges ever being laid against any of them, and the Ottawa Police Services (OPS) and Ottawa Police Services Board (OPSB) refuses to detail the reasons as to why they were placed under surveillance.
Somali-Canadian Police Officers Seeking Information
Five Somali-Canadian police officers are pursuing a lawsuit and want the courts to disclose all the information that the OPS used to obtain multiple wiretap warrants against them and for it to be made public The OPS and the OPSB have requested that the courts keep those reasons secret. The five officers are arguing that the OPS has earned a reputation, internally and externally, as an institution rife with racism and discrimination, and race and ethnicity had a role to play in them being investigated. The OPSB has responded to the lawsuit in a rather unusual response, “that such instances, even if true, are irrelevant and do not establish a systemic practice by the OPS of abusing state power to intercept individuals based on race or ethnic origin.”
Out of the four applications, the courts have only granted the application to unseal the fourth application, and the sole approved application was forwarded to be vetted by the Crown before it is released. Although wiretap authorizations are supposed to require a high standard to be approved, and for police to demonstrate that they have exhausted all available investigative techniques. The five officers, who were never involved in criminality, would either have had to have been the targets of the investigation and involved in criminality, or they would have had to be associated to the targets. However, the five officers claim that the latter is also impossible because they have not associated with anyone involved in criminality.
The five officers, who have stated how they were hired in part because of their race, have faced retaliation for their anti-racism advocacy with the OPS. Although the five officers had distant family members who got involved in gangs in their teenage years, the officers have no relationship with those individuals. Yet, somehow, the Superior Court approved four wiretap warrants and allowed police to intercept their most private communications, and it has impacted their professional reputation and credibility.
The five officers have stated how their colleagues have told them that the manner in which they were treated was “fucked up” and that they knew that they were not involved in what was being alleged. Other colleagues have stated that they were advised to stay away from these five officers. One of the five officers had an exemplary record as an officer, with great performance reviews and never being the subject of any complaint. Now those five officers echo the same message that racialized activist groups have been saying: they distrust the police (especially the OPS) as a result of having experience the weaponization of policing powers against them.
The Somali-Canadian and Black community organizations and their leaders ended up holding a press conference requesting that an independent investigation into the allegation be conducted and that there be accountability for any misconduct. Additionally, community leaders requested that the OPS and OPSB admit they made a mistake and take the necessary steps to repair the damage they have done, but I expect that will never happen for two reasons. The Police College teaches aspiring police officer that it is important to never admit any wrongdoing because the Police Services Act protects them from any liability if they claim they acted in good faith. Whereas police service boards rely on the fact that criminal defence lawyers are not permitted to sit on these boards, and so their solicitors have been known to misinterpret the law because there is no repercussion for them doing so.
When the lawsuit gets in front of a judge, how are the five Somali-Canadian police officers supposed to present a holistic and accurate argument about the actions of the OPS if they are restricted from having access to all the information involving the wiretap applications? Such a power imbalance make it nearly impossible for any court to hear such a case’s facts in totality and to make rulings that are in the public interest of all Canadians. So, it remains to be seen how the courts will rule on whether the five officers were “victims of discrimination, hostility and racist retaliation through state conduct”.
Power Imbalances and Centralized Control
Returning to Mr. Khorsand, the racialized Canadian denied and removed from employment for undisclosed background checks, after reaching out to the TCHC and Metrolinx to determine what involvement the two employers had when it came to those checks, neither was involved in that process, they did not track any hiring-related data, and stated as being bound to those findings. So, there was no information on how many applicants who failed the background check also happened to be racialized applicants. Nor was there any gathering of postal codes (socio-economic) data of applicants who failed the background check. Neither organization seemed to be aware of the background check criterion or how someone could have no criminal history and still fail a background check. Both organizations, as well as the Toronto Police Services Board (TPSB), advised to connect with the TPS for all relevant information regarding the background checks.
After connecting with the TPS media office and being advised that my request was in queue, three weeks passed and there was no response. I only had a handful of questions for the TPS, and they were straightforward. Did the TPS track application outcomes and the number of racialized Canadians that failed background checks despite not having any criminal history? How acquainted were different stakeholders about the background check process and the different criterion? And the last question inquired about whether the discovery of having unfavourable views of the TPS, policing at-large, or making unfavorable remarks over social media platforms, during open-source intelligence gathering, may cause someone to fail a background check.
The non-response was similar to previous interactions, when I submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for the Toronto Police Services policies around general occurrence reports. On that occasion, the FOI officer stated that I had to provide them with the public policies (Applicable Standards Ontario Policing Standard: AI-007) that another police service in the Greater Toronto Area had shared with me or I would not receive a response. Almost seven months later, and not having provided the TPS with the other policing services policies, they have stopped responding altogether and I have not been provided with the public policies, by what should be a “democratic institution”.
Perhaps the key learning takeaway from participating in Harvard Business School’s “Power and Influence for Positive Impact”, was the introduction of a thinking framework by Dr. Julie Battilana as it relates to power and organizational structures. One way to look at power imbalances within institutional settings is that they exist for a reason. Power imbalances allow for a centralized control over power-wielding outcomes, which becomes very desirable when dealing with institutions that are as tainted as the institution of policing and even the courts. Although the complex legacy of the institution of our courts is one that has attempted to trend in the right direction and attempted to get outcomes right, it is still one that is rooted in oppression and systemic discrimination. At the end of the day, knowledge is the sole enabler of justice, and it is why Canada’s courts are having to move the goal posts when it comes to antiquated practices that have no place in today’s society: because you cannot argue the systemic nature of systemic practices when the knowledge of such practices is sealed and hidden away.
Personal Experiences of Police Weaponization
My familiarity on the general topic of the “weaponization of policing powers” is that I have had policing powers weaponized against me by a handful of Ottawa Police Service officers, including an officer who was working in the chief’s executive office. Those officers attempted to file two frivolous police reports, one after the other, stemming from a request I made as board member of a community association. These reports were so inaccurate, they caused me to do a public policy dive specific to policing reports and how the core issue of “carding” remained unresolved, but I was unable to dispute them despite having all the information to show how inaccurate they were.
Now the Ministry of the Solicitor General, after seven months, has yet to respond to my FOI and provide me with the provincial directives that they set out as well as what the Ontario Police College teaches aspiring police officers to do when they get police reports wrong. Even after reaching out to my Member of Provincial Parliament and them attempting to assist me by reaching out to their contact at the Ministry, there is no response after multiple weeks. The entirety of the situation is so ridiculous, but it perfectly illustrates the disaster of policing in Ontario.
The frivolous reports stem from me reporting an illegal online gambling ring in 2020 that exploited members of my ethnic community, where a member of that group offered to provide me with an online account in 2018. They occurred immediately after the Ontario Civilian Policing Commission (OCPC) had revived a complaint I submitted about the illegal gambling ring and how the Ottawa Police Services Board had mishandled my complaint, on the advice of their lawyer. But there is a twist.
This illegal online gambling saga is something I have previously written about, but without the part about how I hacked Italian organized crime, South Asian organized crime and the Hells Angels, in Ottawa and Ontario at-large, as a teenager (though federal policing and public safety stakeholders are aware) and finding out that this was an undercover investigation (discussed with my MPP’s office last summer). So, the OPSB’s response to the OCPC, where they called my allegations as libelous, becomes much more interesting because of how they undermine the integrity of the oversight body, by submitting factual lies, either on the advice of their lawyer, or being made unaware. Because the institution of policing is self-harming itself, the courts are enabling the self-destructive behavior, and both lack leadership to get back on track.
Maybe once I finish the public policy piece related to having two frivolous police reports filed against me, then readers might get an article that details how “the greatest hacks are seldom told”.
