In the hours that followed Premier Doug Ford’s press conference where he announced expanded powers for police, services across the province stated they would not do random vehicle or person checks.
Scott Tod, Chief of the North Bay Police Service, says police services wanted more clarity around the random checks.
“It wasn’t something we said we didn’t want, it wasn’t something we said we did want. We just asked the government to put rigour around the whole lawfulness of that activity,” he said.
Tod says police services across Ontario were consulted in the hours leading up to the Premier’s announcement Friday, where talks immediately began on the arbitrary searches.
“We had discussions with a number of people both in the ministry and also within the government just with that whole aspect of stop-and-ask,” Tod said. “The concern in policing that has been going on since earlier times when we had discussions about the issue of carding.”
Provincial legislation was amended in 2017 forbidding police to randomly stop people based on race, sex or location.
Tod says that amendment is what led to the conversations in the policing community following Friday’s announcement.
“The police community is acutely aware of that legislation and we’re acutely aware of the concern for civil rights and liberties for people in our communities. It’s a collective thought in policing right now,” he said. “It’s nice to see the new bill did not have that.”
North Bay police tweeted early Saturday that it would not be doing random spot checks, which came alongside similar statements from departments in Toronto, London and Niagara.
Tod says North Bay police officers will continue to operate as they have throughout the pandemic, providing education on the provincial rules and handing out fines where they see fit.
“On the most obvious infractions, we will lay tickets. On the ones that we’re concerned about having further consultation with prosecutors, those are the ones we may not take immediate action on,” he said, adding it’s done on a “case by case” basis.
