The commander of the RCMP in Nova Scotia says the force is sorry for the wide-ranging harms the province’s Black community suffered due to the Mounties’ historic use of street checks.
Assistant commissioner Dennis Daley issued the apology to African Nova Scotians and all people of African descent during a Saturday afternoon event in North Preston, a predominantly Black community northeast of Halifax.
During the apology, which was livestreamed to several other locations including Shelburne, Sydney and Digby, Daley said the RCMP disrespected the Black community and said he was sorry for the ways street checks harmed everything from economic opportunities to interactions with family and friends.
Now banned in Nova Scotia, street checks—also known as “carding” in other parts of Canada—involved police randomly stopping citizens to record their personal information and store it electronically.
A provincially commissioned study released in 2019 condemned the practice used by Halifax Regional Police and the province’s RCMP because it targeted young Black men and created a “disproportionate and negative” impact on African Nova Scotian communities.
In November 2019, then-Halifax police chief Daniel Kinsella issued a formal apology to the city’s Black community, acknowledging that police actions and words over the decades caused mistreatment and victimization.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
