2015

“Carding” in Canada: An Ethical Assessment Zhengran (Max) Zhu

Course: SPPA 4190 A

Professors: Dr. Naomi Couto & Dr. Ian Greene

December 10, 2015

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Introduction

In recent months, the media has been abuzz with debates about carding. Questions on its

validity and use as well as its impact on minority groups have been explored in great depth. Carding

is the police practice of recording highly detailed personal information of citizens in non-criminal

encounters. This information is recorded on contact cards and entered into a police database for

future use in the search for runaway criminals. With more knowledge of a population, police can

identify criminals sooner and more accurately, thereby reducing the time and cost spent on

investigating false leads. Supporters argue for the need for security, by placing those deemed to be

dangerous behind bars. Critics argue, however, that carding is founded on racist views, another

form of racial profiling towards visible minorities. Statistics have supported the overrepresentation

of blacks in these practices. In 2008, for instance, blacks represented 8.6 percent of Toronto’s

population yet formed 22.6 percent of all carded individuals; comparatively, white individuals

represented 53.1 percent of Torontonians and a more proportionate 55.2 percent of all carding

entries (Price 18). In addition to the moral concerns it raises, current carding practices in Canada

worsen the racial divide between Canadians and is unjustified under any of the ethical frameworks

of thought.

The following paper presents a background of racial profiling in Canada, including the

statistics that feed into activist movements such as Black Lives Matter in Toronto. Carding is then

examined using consequentialism, Kantian and Rawlsian ethics, and is extended to the Ontario

government’s new draft regulations on carding practices in the province. The paper concludes with

a few recommendations on how to ethically address the public interest on this matter.

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Racial Profiling in Canada

Racial profiling is “any police-initiated action that relies on race, ethnicity, or national

origin and not merely on the behaviour of an individual” (Risse and Zeckhauser 135). In theory,

carding does not meet this definition as it offers no instruction on how police should develop the

‘profile’ of their divisions. In practice, however, officers are relying on race-based indicators in

‘high-crime neighbourhoods’ to identify their so-described ‘random’ selection of individuals. On

top of the statistic mentioned in the opening paragraph, 88,300 contact cards were recorded in

2013 that identified a person of ‘black’ skin colour – an average of 1,700 cards per week (Price

18). Between 2003 and 2008, 401,000 cards were filled out for ‘black’ people yet, using the 2006

census, only 208,000 of 2.4 million Torontonians were black (Price 18). This means that, in

addition to the near certainty of being carded, most black communities were carded multiples times

over the five-year period. Such duplication adds no value to the police database but the practice,

collectively, becomes the state’s surveillance camera to racially oppress visible minorities (Smith

16).

Mutual understanding of the issue is the second part to the problem. Members of the

dominant white group have an “experiential” gap with the practice as they are targeted – by

frequency and proportion – to their representation in the population (Smith 15). This leads them –

also the skin colour of key decision-makers in the police force – to approach the issue idealistically

and resist reform. In reality, carding is a highly ineffective practice that establishes borders and

exclusions for visible minorities that apply at many entry-ways in their lives (Smith 16). Not only

do contact cards end up on an individual’s police – not criminal – record, most of them are done

as a preventative policing strategy with no real results in mind. For example, in 2008, only 566 of

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289,400 cards entered were attributed to serious incidents of ‘organized crime’, ‘hold up’ or

‘homicide’ (Price 18) while, in Peel Region, police chief Jennifer Evans required three years of

research to present six successful crimes aided by information in contact cards (Grewal). All

evidence indicates that race should not substitute for real knowledge of one’s propensity for

criminal activity.

The final part of the problem is the degree of discretion in the hands of police officers. As

part of preventative police work, officers are entrusted with a high level of discretion in order to

act quickly in the prevention of danger. Evidence suggests, however, that some officers abuse the

privilege and use race as a “proxy for criminality or general criminal propensity for an entire racial

group” (Smith 20). In the early 1970s, for instance, local RCMP officers of Alert Bay, British

Columbia would camp outside a popular Indian bar every Friday night and arrest every Aboriginal

patron that walked out of the bar for public drunkenness (Rudin 34). Regardless of whether these

assumptions of alcohol tolerance were true or not, the existence of racial bias is evident in police

work and significantly breaks the trust between officers and the communities they serve and

protect. It is both started and reinforced within the institution. During training, police officers are

educated on identifying the characteristics of killers using anecdotes, experiences and news articles

(Tator and Henry). As most of these materials link race to criminality, officers begin to think

stereotypically towards these racial groups (Tator and Henry). Once they start work, all officers –

white or otherwise – are expected to treat black residents with greater suspicion and less respect.

Any black officers who do not fall in line face internal scrutiny for failing to play the game (Cole).

By not eradicating a work culture that supports the practice of systemic discrimination to identify

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crime, officers apply this discretion in carding with poor regard for the broader impact of racial

oppression on large visible minorities.

A Consequentialist Approach

To be ethically defensible under utilitarianism, carding must fulfill the normative principle

of delivering the greatest good for the greatest number of people (Dimock 34). Its analysis is

focused on balancing the happiness, or utility, of a decision with the unhappiness, or disutility,

caused to all stakeholders implicated by the decision. This theory is excellent for any policy that

implicates society as duplication of utility, or disutility, across a population factors into felicific

calculations, at the cost of qualitative features such as severity or likeliness of unforeseen

consequences (Dimock 35). To advance a study under this framework, the concept of what a

“good” entails must be clarified; otherwise, the outcomes considered would be too broad and open

for personal interpretation, in relation to the creation of happiness. For this paper, the common

good is having a society where “the social systems, institutions and environments on which we all

depend work in a manner that benefits all people” (Velasquez et al. ). One example of the common

good is an effective system of public safety and security, and a just legal system for all members

of society (Velasquez et al.). The notion of a common good is widely contested in academic works

– all which are justified – and thus this is only one variation of it.

As stated by Mathias Risse and Richard Zeckhauser in their paper Racial Profiling, ethical

arguments for carding or racial profiling tend to be utilitarian in nature (132). They can be

summarized to two ideas: cost-effectiveness and low direct harm to individuals. In light of the

recent opposition to carding in Ontario over the last two years, police forces have responded to

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public scrutiny by touting the tangible successes of the practice. Police find it vital to continue this

practice due to the notion that it effectively keeps the streets clean. In Toronto, Deputy Police

Chief Peter Sloly explained that major solved cases of “sexual assaults, abuses of children, (and)

horrible multiple shootings have all come out of (the) practice.” (CBC). With a more descriptive

profile of a community, officers can direct part of their investigation on individuals that match the

victim’s recollection of the suspect or suspects. This increases the ratio of true positives and lowers

the ratio of false positives during an investigation, allowing officers to close the case sooner and

save money from the police budget (Thomsen 101). (A true positive is a test result where police

locate the right suspect; false positive is a test result that identifies the wrong person) These savings

will be carried over into future years and the municipalities can allocate less of their revenues to

the police and increase funding for social programs, thereby making more low-income earners

happier.

If the act of carding was examined in itself, academics argue that the incremental harm to

visible minorities would be very small. In a non-racist society, carding would be desired by all

members of society if it proportionately targets the racial groups more prone to committing crime

(Badhi et al. 32). In Canada, for instance, 22 percent of the federal prison population is Aboriginal

while 10 percent is black (Fine). Racial profiling, according to this viewpoint, is just smart law

enforcement that focuses resources on groups of higher risk to maximize efficiency (Badhi et al.

38). Efficiency delivers results that can trump individual or collective rights of a group. Risse and

Zeckhauser compare non-racist racial profiling to higher car insurance for young drivers (145).

Even if the driver is not dangerous, he or she accepts the higher cost due to other bad apples in the

age group. Carding follows the same principle; while not all black or Aboriginal people are

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criminals, they should “acquiesce” to the higher scrutiny as it protects others – and themselves –

and spurs other benefits such as more economic activity in the community (Reiman 14). Visible

minorities, however, already perceive society as racist and thus attribute the slight inconvenience

to their skin colour and “historical encounters with the ruling class” (Badhi et al., 38). This is a

poor proxy for the real damage caused by carding. Even if carding is banned, the expressive harm

would still remain. The actual harm, then, is small and should be accepted for the level of public

safety it brings to all members of society.

As utilitarianism is an agent-neutral theory, the practice of carding is not bound to address

any agent relative concerns that some groups may share. Visible minorities may perceive the issue

differently but their unique viewpoints, arisen from experiences of racialization, are not factored

into the overall assessment, regardless of the public perception on the matter. It is important,

however, to investigate carding from a rule utilitarianism approach as well, as the practice ties into

a wider attitude towards visible minorities in police forces across Canada. Between 1986 and 1992,

for instance, police intensified their patrol of low-income areas in Ontario targeting black people

as suspects in the “war on drugs” (Badhi et al. 34) This led to an overrepresentation of Blacks in

prison in spite of the lack of evidence that members of the race were more likely to use or profit

from drugs than other racial groups (Badhi et al. 34). Ultimately, the perceived success of profiling

Blacks through high incarceration rates “fueled the already existing stereotype that young Black

males were likely to be involved in drug related crimes” (Badhi et al. 34). The rule utilitarian

approach asks if these attitudes are justified enough to be formulated into a general rule that race-

based indicators should be used as a foundation of policing strategies in Canada.

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The disutility of racial profiling is not commensurable to its proposed benefits. To be

justified, it must have sufficiently great benefit and great likelihood that the flagged individuals

are connected to a current or future crime (Thomsen 101). While the benefit of halting a future

drug deal is significant, each profiled individual has an equally and very small probability of being

positively identified as a criminal down the road. Despite this, the bulk of complaints against racial

profiling relates to the discomfort, inconvenience and humiliation that citizens unduly, and

innocently, suffer from the intensive scrutiny (Thomsen 91). Resentment, ranging from shame to

indignation, becomes a direct, intense form of disutility in their lives as it impedes their ability to

be happy. African-Americans have gone so far to describe the police as “the most prominent

reminder of (their) second-class citizenship” in the United States (Kennedy 152).

The father of modern policing, Sir Robert Peel, believed that “people are the police and the

police are the people” (The Economist). Applying unjustified assumptions on racial groups

increase the divide between police and the people. Blacks and other visible minorities no longer

view the norms of the legal system and its enforcers as legitimate, increasing the potential for

criminality (Thomsen 106). Victims feel distrusted and disrespected by the system which, at times,

can act as the nudge that pushes a would-be criminal against the law (Thomsen 106). When

executed without racial bias, profiling is an effective tool to deter criminal activity as would-be

criminals are more fearful of being discovered for potential crimes. Racial profiling promotes the

opposite – an anti-deterrent effect. By racializing certain groups as more criminal than others, more

police resources are divested into the group and away from action against other groups (Thomsen

105). This makes it efficient in targeting potential offenders in the group but loses the deterrent

effect on those not part of the racial group, creating a smaller effect at a city- or nation-wide level

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(Thomsen 105). Both alienation and anti-deterrent effects demonstrate that racial profiling, as a

police practice, does not serve the common good of an efficient system of public safety. More

crime, rather than less crime, is perpetuated on society and debunks the very purpose of racial

profiling of making communities safer through cooperation and preventative police work. More,

citizens are exposed to danger when racial stereotypes affect police objectivity.

From a utilitarian viewpoint, the practice of carding does not produce the greatest good.

Some tangible benefits to the program exist and removing the individual action will not alleviate

the pain of systemic racism in society for its victims. Carding occurs, however, due to the general

rule of racial profiling within the police forces in Canada. Adopting an ideology of using

observable characteristics in crime is counteractive to the overall effort of lowering criminal

activity in a community and is a deliberate violation of fundamental Charter rights, including

equality rights protected under Section 15 (Badhi et al. 42) Most importantly, racial scrutiny causes

an intense, long-lasting source of unhappiness for its victims but only creates an uncertain benefit

for public safety. Felicific calculus ascribes more weight to these characteristics in calculating the

greater amount of good and, consequently, the more intense negative outcomes tip the ethical

balance of the practice.

A Kantian Approach

Under consequentialist moral theories, carding is evaluated in empirical terms. Good

outcomes, such as a lower crime rate or better police investigative techniques, are balanced with

bad outcomes, such as Charter violations on individuals, to determine if the practice is ethical or

not. For Kant, the right decision is made a priori to any rule or consequence of actions. Rather, the

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intrinsic value of an act is defined by how well it abides by universal principles and if it can be

supported by good, justifiable reasons (Woof 2). It must respect the people that it implicates by

treating each of them as ends in themselves, no matter how good or beneficent the outcomes may

be for a larger population (Dimock 43). By perfecting the principles of universality and respect for

persons, the end decision will be based from “perfectly good will” to produce a good state of affairs

and meet the categorical imperative for the benefit of society (Woof 3).

Carding subordinates the ends of a visible minority by treating them as means for the White

majority. By acting on the assumption that certain crimes are committed disproportionately by

certain racial groups, individuals are being profiled on a characteristic that “partly constitutes their

identity” (Risse and Zeckhauser 145). They are not seen as rational beings in themselves but rather

as mere members of a larger group, adopting its characteristics at the exclusion of their personal

ones. This is a violation of the respect for persons principle as the state is depriving them of their

ability to act on their own ends, including the freedom to walk without multiple requests to be

carded, a lower chance of getting arrest (by not existing in the database) or social segregation

among a mixed-race group of friends (Thomsen 106). As a provider of social welfare for all

Canadians, it is a duty for the police to owe reasonableness to each individual separately (Reiman

8). The racial group does not contribute to society as one entity. Rather, individuals engage in

different types of work and make their own contributions to society, such as tax payments. As

such, the state ought to treat each person with respect by not relying on “cheap-to-observe

characteristics” in the name of a public good (Lombardo). By disrespecting the rational agency of

visible minorities, carding does not treat individuals as ends in themselves but only as a means to

create an unproven sense of security. They are unable to exercise autonomy and choice over how

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they should be treated by the police as they have already been labelled and fitted with

predetermined attributes.

If the current form of carding was universalized, society would devolve into a state divided

by class, race, or creed. Each community would have a permanent underclass that, due to the power

of carding enforcers, would have no means to overcome it. Carding would inhibit the ability for

certain groups to get ahead as the constant police checks paints a picture of them as violent,

dangerous or untrustworthy. Some of these outcomes have emerged in Canadian society after three

decades of its deployment. In telephone surveys done with 1,257 Ontarians, 43 percent of black

male residents were stopped by Toronto Police over a two year period (Badhi et al. 34). Among

those, 17 percent were reported to have been stopped on two or more occasions (Badhi et al. 34).

The figures for White residents were drastically lower at 25 and 8 percent, respectively, as they

were less likely to be criminalized or face the suspicious eye (Badhi et al. 34). The criminalization

then plays out in different parts of their lives. Black Canadians, for instance, face a wage gap of

10 to 15 percent from non-visible minority counterparts despite being more educated and living in

urban centres (Grant). A higher chance of being arrested due to more criminalization by police

lead to a criminal record that influences job prospects. Police scrutiny also shapes how media

communicates to people’s views, by portraying blacks as the “other” and “dangerous” group to

hire. In sum, carding is more than a set of questions. If universalized, an entire system of systemic

discrimination could arise and structurally damage the lives of visible minorities in Canada.

There is questionable evidence on how much carding or racial profiling is justified by

public safety concerns. The use of narratives or hegemonic stories in police training, along with

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contributions of opinion leaders in the police force, reinforce and reproduce existing ideologies of

power and inequality in society (Tator and Henry). Most of these narratives portray race as one

indicator of criminality and encourages stereotypical thinking about particular racial and cultural

groups. These images remain once officers enter the workforce and, over time, becomes

reproduced in the form of police bias in carding. The issue here is whose duties should be

performed by the police. On one side, they are legally obligated to fulfill their duty to their

employer and managing social order through various policing techniques, including racial

profiling. On the other hand, they owe a duty to protect citizens by “serving and protecting” their

needs, as in the case of the Toronto Police. The best decision under Kantian ethics is the duty to

protect citizens from harm. Even if the police are controlled by their employer, the inherent and

original purpose is to make better as a whole. The means that the government chooses, influenced

by decades of radicalized relationships with groups, is wrong by racially separating the people into

different groups by race. Carding supports a shift from that intention and is therefore wrong. If the

duty was universalized, the world would be a safer place to live as everyone would be able to live

in peace. Each individual would be treated as ends in themselves as a secure society enables them

to have dignity and exercise moral judgments, in the highest form of humanity. Fulfilling one’s

duty to their employer does not meet the categorical imperative. While each officer’s loyalty to

the police chief is a great sign of respect, someone at the top of the management chain will not

have an employer. This opens the door for unethical or poor decisions that, if executed, may cause

undue damage to an entire population. Such lack of self-control makes the duty to employer an

invalid one under Kant and, consequently, any act of carding made under the loyalty to the force

is unethical.

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In the Kantian view on ethics, the act of carding is not acceptable. By perceiving all

individuals as uniform members of a racial group – with the same characteristics, habits and

personality traits – visible minorities are treated in terms of a group membership and not as they

deserve. This shows a lack of respect for victims as ends in themselves, without the ability to act

in autonomy and define their own identity. Furthermore, the practice would be incoherent if it was

universalized by all police forces in the world. It creates two classes of citizenship, opening up the

possibility of class warfare or disharmony in society. The maxim cannot be universalized either,

as it cannot be expected that everyone will be judged on genuine grounds of suspicion and not by

the colour of their skin. A lack of care for visible minorities may eventually rid all minorities in

Canada, leaving only one race of ‘White’ Canadians in Canada. Carding fails both components of

the Categorical Imperative and does not meet the supreme principle of morality.

A Rawlsian Approach

Rawlsian ethics asks if the practice of carding would be acceptable within a society in the

original position. The rules of the society would be set by a group of rational individuals that have

knowledge of general matters, such as history or economics, but make decisions behind a veil of

ignorance that denies them knowledge of which ethnic identities and situations are more subject

to racism than others (Reiman 6). Public policy would agree in the original position if it is in every

actual person’s interest. It does not guarantee that every person is content with the outcome, as

long as it is equitable to all and rational for them to accept carding when they are ignorant of where

they stand in the practice. There would be no knowledge, for instance, of the power or wealth

imbalance between visible and non-visible minorities as mentioned above.

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The challenge remains on whether racism is inherently part of Canada’s social fabric and

identity. In a perfectly non-racist society, the act of racial profiling can be ethical if it is benefits

the investigation of serious crimes. Crime is harmful to both the individual and society by affecting

the way people work, socialize and raise their families; thus, it is in everyone’s best interest to

have a criminal system that “apprehends, punishes and deters” crime (Reiman 10). Some

populations may face greater inconvenience than others. This is tolerable as long as the practice is

done in proportion to the gravity of crimes it assists in investigation (Reiman 11). The arrest of

Min Chen for the murder of Cecilia Zhang in 2003, for example, was attributed to carding as Chen

was carded for his suspicious activity at a fishing pond, which was linked back to his potential

presence at the Zhang household at the time of the kidnapping (Blatchford). In this case, carding

would have been acceptable as the murder of a child warrants more intensive measures to catch

the murderer. If not caught, a psychopathic child killer may reoffend and risk the safety of children

and other members of the general public. Race was not the determining factor that caused Chen to

be carded; however, as police were looking for an Asian individual who knew the Zhangs, the

officer took additional effort to follow up on his potential involvement in the case and produced a

compelling case of his whereabouts that morning (Blatchford). Under the original position of a

non-racist society, this use of race is acceptable as it increased the effectiveness of the criminal

justice system in meeting the safety concerns posed to society, making everyone better off with,

rather than without, it (Reiman 11). Chen was inconvenienced on general grounds and the level of

inconvenience commensurate with the degree of crime involved.

In a society where racism is part of the general knowledge of lawmakers, however, the

original position would prohibit the practice of carding. It can be reasonably believed that racial

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profiling would cause unreasonable direct harm and violation to some racial groups, influencing

how the non-visible majority perceives the minorities (Reiman 17). When exercised by the police,

this perception may influence how the majority treats the minorities and lead to violations of their

human rights. There may be more indifference and hostility towards Black people; an increased

perception that Blacks import crime to neighbourhoods; discouragement of Blacks from working

in White neighbourhoods at night, or the potential to downplay Whites as perpetuators of violence

and crime (Reiman 16). All of these are forms of ungrounded discrimination that would be

assigned to a law-abiding Black person. Racist patterns in employment, thought or behaviour deny

victims the rights that a White person would otherwise receive under those circumstances, such as

right to travel or the presumption of innocence. Under Rawlsian ethics, the existence of more

extensive rights to equivalent groups of same office and position is not a fair social arrangement

(Couto). As Rawls said in the Theory of Fairness, no one shall possess an “inviolability founded

on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override” (Kant 3). The pursuit of a

public good, such as safety, should not be achieved through an unfair social arrangement where

different racial groups are assigned different sets of basic liberties. Infringing on the basic rights

of minorities deforms their prospects in life (Nussbaum). For instance, not allowing them to work

in certain jobs restricts their potential to be successful and acquire wealth, which further limits

their ability to lead a higher standard of living or overcome some socioeconomic barriers that

society places upon them as racialized, second-class citizens. Allowing this to happen builds an

unjust society with no free and fair cooperation between citizens and one that, if left by itself, will

reflect the brutish, savage state of nature described by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (Nussbaum).

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Canadian society resembles the latter of the two scenarios. As aforementioned, racism has

a “long and inglorious history” in Canada with serious impacts on search, surveillance, arrest and

incarceration rates within racialized communities (Badhi et al. 31). Aboriginal people, for

example, are extremely overrepresented in the criminal justice system. As 2.8 percent of Canada’s

population, Aboriginals represent 17 percent of the federal offender population and are six times

more likely to be incarcerated than any other race (Badhi et al. 37). Parole hearings are waived

more frequently by them than any other offender and parole is denied at a higher rate than non-

Aboriginal offenders (Badhi et al. 37). These pieces of evidence point to a society where racism is

systemic and real in the way visible minorities live in Canada. Marginally inconvenient policing

techniques, such as carding, immediately arouse extreme feelings of racism among racialized

communities (Badhi et al. 31). In other words, these people perceive racism as the primary driver

of injustice. With such an embedded notion among members of society, it would be unreasonable

for Canadians to omit racism behind the veil of ignorance. Hypothetical lawmakers in the original

position ought to formulate rules that consider racism as a general source of injustice. Selected

social arrangements must consider whether it heals the divided caused by racism and, furthermore,

if various racial groups would accept them (Couto). Racial profiling makes visible minorities

worse off than the dominant White class and no ethnic group would accept the practice of carding;

thus, carding is unethical in the Rawlsian view.

Is Ontario’s Ban on Carding Ethical?

All three approaches used in this paper have demonstrated carding as an unethical practice

that violates the rights of visible minorities to a good life. On October 28, 2015, the Ontario

government unveiled draft regulations to amend the Police Services Act to eliminate carding in

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the province. The plan entails a ban on random and arbitrary collection of information starting on

the first of March 2016 with new procedures on voluntary interactions with police beginning on

the first of July (Taber). Additionally, officers must attend mandatory training in areas such as

“bias awareness, discrimination and awareness” and police forces will release annual reports on

any non-arbitrary carding information collected, including the number of cards written up as well

as the age, gender and race of the individuals involved (Taber). The draft is currently undergoing

a 45-day public consultation period before it is finalized and introduced to the legislature in 2016.

The government’s decision to end carding was an excellent ethical move to address the

increasing tension within racialized communities against the practice; however, the loopholes of

the policy limits how effective it may be in addressing the ethical issues faced in the status quo.

The ban on random and arbitrary collection of information is a very open-ended policy where there

is no way for the public to ensure that the ban is enforced in the spirit of the (soon-to-be) legislation.

Being in a “high crime neighbourhood”, for example, cannot be the sole reason for a street check

anymore but it may still exist as one of the possible reasons (Hudson). Moreover, there is no

definition of what ‘random’ collection entails. As long as officers can prove some sort of suspicion

– from a criminal offence to quickly removing one’s hands from their pockets – they reserve the

right to gather identifying information for ‘intelligence’ purposes (Rusonik). Officers may also

card someone if they develop suspicions during the course of an informal conversation. As long

as they had no intention at the start of the conversation to record information, it would be very

hard under case law to determine that their actions were “arbitrary” and not “random” (Rusonik).

All of these loopholes in the legislation make no changes to the status quo. The actual disutility of

the practice will remain high for racial minorities as they could still be manipulated into providing

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their identifying information under the pretext of a casual conversation. By forcing officers to

adopt alternative means to acquire race statistics – which was not outlawed by the regulation – will

make visible minorities feel more humiliated and distrustful of the police. It may discourage them

from engaging in casual conversations at all with officers, in turn reducing the efficiency of

criminal investigations and the amount of public safety and security (the public good) that can be

delivered. Assuming that some racial groups are more likely to commit crimes, engagement with

those ethnic communities may bring more light on the criminals’ tendencies or way of thinking,

enabling the police to accurately track them down. All of these outcomes depend on the willingness

of Ontarians to speak with their police force. If the police are resorting to unethical tactics to sustain

data collection initiatives, the regulations are creating more disutility for the province and is not

aiding the attainment of the greatest good.

There is a stronger argument in favour of the ban from a deontological standpoint. By

compelling officers to notify citizens of their right to not fill out a contact card, the regulations

respect the rational decision-making process of the individual by letting them decide if they wish

to participate or not. This demonstrates the respect for persons principle (Dimock 43). The ban on

carding could also be universalized around the globe. By outlawing the right for police officers to

explicitly target young Black or Aboriginal males for carding, it will reduce the public perception

that Black or Aboriginal youth are more prone to committing crimes than their peers. This may

mend the class division created under current practices of racial profiling and make the society

safer by bolstering trust between police and the people. By meeting the Categorical Imperative,

the new carding ban is – theoretically – an ethically defensible one as it meets the standards of

supreme morality under Kantian ethics. It ensures the criminal justice system is closer to fulfilling

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its perfect duty of justice by closing another means for officers to reproduce existing power and

inequality in society. The only point of concern relates to the enforcement of regulations. Based

on the draft document, there is no mechanism for ensuring that officers do notify all citizens of

their voluntary right to participation nor any punishments for violating the regulations (Hudson).

These take away from the original spirit of the regulations and thus does not carry the same ethical

assessment as in the codified version.

Ontario’s ban on carding would also be supported under the Rawlsian view of justice as

fairness (Couto). By eliminating practices rooted in ungrounded racial discrimination, the division

of human rights is more equally distributed across the province. Like all of Canada, racism is

embedded in the beliefs of Ontarians and the sensitivity of the issue must be recognized in the

original position. This regulation reflects a concerted effort to ensure that visible minorities do not

receive any fewer rights on the street than non-visible minorities. To create a more justified social

arrangement, the government could propose to delete the abundant cache of information from

carding practices in the past (Hudson). Not doing this will continue to put former carding victims

at risk of being criminalized or losing their right to be free from suspicion, as their profiles will be

reviewed every time the police are looking for a suspect.

Conclusion

It is without doubt that carding cannot be morally justified. The police force is a reflection

of the hegemony that existed in Canada’s history. Historically, people of colour have been

portrayed as inferior to the dominant race. These values continue to be reinforced through the work

of police in racial profiling activities. As crime, criminality and threat to security are often viewed

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as parallel with race as an indicator of dangerousness, the police profile citizens on their racial

backgrounds – regardless of where they were born – as a means to maintain order in society. These

people are viewed as threats to law and order and thus police feel legitimized in discriminating

against these groups. The intention of a police force, however, has always been and should be to

protect its people. Carding, then, does not protect citizens but merely generates a second-class of

citizenry that ensures their continued isolation in society, based on their inherent characteristics.

Rooted in the belief that one’s skin is indicative of one’s criminality, people of colour are

criminalized every day in Canada at no fault of their own. Hence, the Ontario ban on carding is

justified in order to ensure that the greatest good for the greatest number of people is met, that

policing remains true to its original duty of protecting and serving the people rather than acting as

agents of the state as well as to maintain equality in the way each member of our society ought to

be treated. In a society that takes criminality seriously and its impacts ripple through employment,

quality of life and education prospects, this ban might be the breath of fresh air that racial

minorities need. By eliminating profiling by arbitrary characteristics, vulnerable groups can

perhaps, at last, lead lives free from harassment. It may be a small step to the larger problem of

racial discrimination; however, it is the largest step the government can take to restore the basic

freedoms bestowed to them as people of this country.

20

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