Action plan next step after apology to Black Nova Scotians: N.S. RCMP assistant commissioner

The Nova Scotia RCMP apologized to the province’s Black community this past weekend for the historic use of street checks and other harmful interactions.

Street checks, which are now banned in Nova Scotia, involve police randomly stopping citizens to record their personal information and store it electronically. The practice is sometimes referred to as “carding” elsewhere in Canada.

The formal apology took place at a ceremony at the North Preston Community Centre on Saturday, where the RCMP acknowledged the harm caused by these practices, which disproportionately targeted Black Nova Scotians for decades. The apology came after years of calls from community members and advocates for accountability and reform.

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“I am deeply sorry for the harm caused by our use of street checks and for interactions with the Nova Scotia RCMP that have had a negative impact on you and your community,” said Nova Scotia RCMP assistant commissioner Dennis Daley during Saturday’s apology.

“I’m sorry to you and your loved ones for how differently potential employers, your family, and your community might have seen you, and even how you might have seen yourself as a result of our actions.”

Prior to the apology, provincial RCMP members held a series of 13 consultations with Black communities in the province to speak with people living there and hear their experiences with the force.

“I would hear stories of harmful interactions and just very emotional stories of interactions with the police that certainly left an impact,” said Daley during an interview with CTV Atlantic’s Todd Battis on Tuesday.

“Having said that, communities were very welcoming to us, they expressed over and over again they want policing, they want good policing, and they want fair and equitable policing. So, they gave us a tremendous amount of feedback on the words of the apology itself and of course, the action plan that we also launched on Saturday.”

As part of the apology, Daley announced an action plan outlining the ways the RCMP plans to rebuild the fractured relationships with the Black community. The plan includes employee education around African Nova Scotian history and anti-Black racism and collaboration with Black communities across the province.

“It is really a community-led action plan that focuses around education of our RCMP and employees. It focuses around participation in the community. They told us over and over again that they want good policing, but they also want to see us as human beings,” said Daley.

“So, they want to see us at community events, whether it be a gala, whether it be a church service, a youth programming.”

Daley said the action plan also includes race-based data collection – something he says the RCMP has never done across the country.

“So, we do have pilot sites. We’re hoping that Nova Scotia becomes a pilot site as soon as we can get over some technical issues. But collection of that data will actually inform better policy, better training because we’ll know who we’re dealing with and why we’re dealing with them,” he said.

“In addition, of course the focus on our recruiting and retention. So, the RCMP have a significant recruiting drive on right now for all levels of employees. So, whether you actually want to be a police officer or those that support policing, recruiting and retention of our current employees, which is almost more important, is a focus of this action plan.”

During Saturday’s apology, attendees told CTV Atlantic although the apology is long overdue, it’s the following actions that mean the most.

“It’s a start but it’s not the end. We have a long way to go and this apology will mean nothing without the actions that follow,” said Asiah Sparks on Saturday.

“As a young African Nova Scotian male, it did touch me because I know when the consultations were held in my community, the amount of trauma that was there,” Jayreece Whiley said following the apology.

A steering committee made up of members of Black Nova Scotian communities worked with the RCMP leading up to the apology – a group Daley asked not disband following Saturday’s public apology.

“The community told us the action plan is important and you have to report back to us. So, that’s our last objective, objective number five, is that reporting. So, the steering committee has graciously agreed to stay on. It’s a three-year action plan, so we’ll be reporting to the steering committee, we’ll be reporting to the public via avenues like this (live interviews) if you’d have me back and also via our detachment commanders that serve communities.”

In November 2019, Halifax's police chief issued a formal apology to the city's Black community, saying the gesture was a first step toward dealing with a series of historic wrongs. At the time, chief Daniel Kinsella acknowledged officers' actions and words over the decades had caused mistreatment and victimization.

When asked why the RCMP didn’t apologize years ago, Daley said the reasons given by the force were “not valid.”

“I said that to the community and I’ve said that in person when we held the consultations and that’s why it became a number one priority for me having served in Nova Scotia for half my career and knowing the contributions of African Nova Scotians, it became my number one priority. So, now my number one priority will be to implement the action plan over the following three years,” he said.

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page.