Dubi Kanengisser, executive director of the TPS Board, provided a presentation on existing actions and activities to support Black communities and advance equity through policing in Toronto. 

• He spoke about a course which educates officers on the realities of Black Canadians and aims to provide historical and cultural context to the challenges of police-community interactions. This course is administered through the Toronto Police College to all members of TPS. 
• He also presented an Equity Strategy, which was designed to create an inclusive workplace and “foster fairness and community safety.” 
• He listed other initiatives, including FOCUS Toronto, TPS Race-Based Data Collection, Know Your Rights, Missing & Missed Report, Governance Equity Review Committee and a Neighbourhood Community Officer Program.

Judith Norris, a Black Scarborough resident, spoke about her experience interacting with the police.

• She said that she was never bothered by the police in her community because the neighbourhoods she lived in were always mixed-race. But that wasn’t the case when she visited Black communities in Toronto.
• “ Every summer when I went to visit my cousins who lived at Jane and Lawrence, and Jane and Finch, without fail — when we were at the park, when we're walking around — the police would stop us, and ask us what we're doing in a park, where kids were playing. Like what would kids be doing in a park?” 
• She recounted a time when police stopped her in downtown and asked for ID. “ I said, ‘What for? I'm the only Black woman that I see here, right? You didn't bother the Caucasian people crossing the road. You didn't bother the Asian people crossing the road. You're only stopping to bother me. I'm in the middle of doing something. Did I break the law? Did I spit on the ground? What did I do?’ Of course they told me I fit the description of a crime that was committed in the area,” Norris said.
• She asked why there is so much overpolicing in Black neighbourhoods, and noted that she's observed in her job as a house cleaner that “well-to-do” neighbourhoods, like Avenue Road and Post Road, have drug and alcohol use, but aren’t policed as much. 

Beau Duquesnay, co-founder of Black Lives Matata, said that the TPS has been “slow and lethargic” in implementing the recommendations from the OHRC.

• Duquesnay described the delay in reforms for issues like Black missing children and carding as “justice denied.” 
• He also said that TPS is “cherry picking” recommendations from the OHRC’s report.
• He added that overpolicing of Black people has led community members to be afraid to participate in safety measures like the vulnerable persons list. 
• He pointed to a white supremacist rally at the CNE in May as evidence anti-Black racism is worsening in Toronto.

Which of the report’s recommendations have been implemented?

Throughout the discussion, members of the committee and the public asked Kanengisser which recommendations from the report have been implemented and/or how such recommendations can be enforced fifteen times.

Kanengisser responded:

• “It's difficult for me to go one by one” since “there's over a hundred of them.” He said the TPS Board identified 30 recommendations as fully implemented, and more as partially implemented. He added that there's more information that will be made public once TPS receives feedback from the OHRC. 
• Kanengisser said he isn’t comfortable saying which recommendations are deemed “completed” until a community-led implementation group assesses them.
• He added that the TPS and its board require further clarification to understand how they can implement some of the recommendations.
• They’ve encountered several issues around the legal framework in place that could limit what they can do, he explained, and in some cases the recommendations are “high level.”

Committee member Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel said,  “Our community has been inundated with reports…recommendations and promises. But we haven't necessarily seen those promises brought to fruition in ways that are measurable in terms of it having impacts on our community.”

“I'm going to ask you to move beyond using the logic [that] these are high-level conversations because when our children are dying or our children are going missing. Those aren’t high level conversations. Those are facts, that's causing trauma and pain within our community,” she added.

Lucina Rakotovao, vice chair of the committee, said she was concerned about a “delay of action being couched in the language of ‘we need more clarification.’”

How are the report’s recommendations enforced?

Rakotovao asked the OHRC commissioner what an enforcement agreement would look to ensure implementation. 

Deguire said: “ Regrettably, I cannot answer it at this juncture...but we must have a mechanism of accountability and transparency that's going to take us to the next level.”

Kanengisser responded: 

• TPS is working with the OHRC to develop a “community-led implementation table.” The community-led body would present reports and best practices through a dedicated website that describes what actions TPS has taken for each recommendation.
• He added that the requirements to sit on the table haven't been determined yet but will be posted once established.
• On whether the TPS board would use OHRC’s language, Kanengisser said “ Not necessarily. [It’s] up to the board to decide what the recommendation is that will be passed to the chief.”
• Kanengisser said  the enforcement tool “is the board itself” and that the TPS board will monitor progress with the help of the community-led implementation team.
• He said he hopes the community-led implementation table will be put in place by the end of the year and that they will have an update for the committee then. 

What were the results of the discussion? 

The Confronting Anti-Black Racism Advisory Committee will recommend municipal committees to invite TPS to present on its progress: How it's implementing each recommendation, what accountability measures are in place and how it plans to engage the community.