A moratorium on street checks was turned into a permanent ban last month, and now an apology from the province could be forthcoming.
It’s something Halifax Regional Police Chief Dan Kinsella committed to doing just days after the practice was banned.
“This is an apology for much more than street checks,” he said. “I think we all know street checks are part of the larger issue. The more broad issue here is some 200 years of inequalities and injustice that have occurred and the apology will be all encompassing.”
READ MORE: Halifax police chief says force will apologize to African Nova Scotians
That apology is scheduled for Nov. 29, but despite the province making street checks illegal, no such promise has been made from government.
Since the moratorium was put in place last April, politicians have admitted “the inappropriate use of street checks is alarming and unacceptable” but have all stopped short of issuing any apology, though recent comments by the justice minister indicate that position may have changed.
“When the province issues an apology it will be in a medium directly engaging the community itself,” Justice Minister Mark Fure
Despite attempts to clarify if that means an apology is coming, the justice department would only echo the minister’s comments saying “when we make an apology, it will be to the community directly.”
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Since the Wortley report found African Nova Scotians were five times more likely to be stopped and street-checked by police than the general population, many in the African Nova Scotian community have been calling for an apology.
“Just culturally, an apology is often thought of as the place where change begins,” said social worker Robert Wright.
“An apology is a recognition that there was harm, an acceptance of responsibility. Not just an idea of ‘hey I’ve done something wrong’ but the recognition that my doing something wrong resulted in a a harm to you.
So those messages I think are really important and I think there are certainly members of the community who are looking to hear that.”
But not everyone wants an apology. Community activist Quentrel Provo says after years of community members speaking out against street checks, the province only took action after a former chief justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court found the practice to be illegal.
“I don’t feel it’s genuine because we’ve been saying this, we’ve been lifting our voices for years,” he said. “I still feel through this whole process our voices weren’t validated.”
Provo is also concerned that since the moratorium on street checks not enough has changed.
“It’s more or less the same and I feel like they’re going to figure out another way to do street checks,” he said.
“The best way to show an apology is to make change and to make things going forward different.”
Wright agrees that that’s an important part of any apology.
“I’m really interested in what is the substantive policy repercussions to an apology,” he said.
He says members of the Decade for People of African Descent coalition in Nova Scotia have been calling for a provincial African Nova Scotian policing strategy to study that question and help to initiate real change.
“Recognizing that street checks are illegal is the beginning of the work.”
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