Disambiguating the Wrongs of Racial Profiling in Policing and Championing Their Structural Remediation: A Reply

Authors

François Tanguay-Renaud, Osgoode Hall Law School of York University

Author ORCID Identifier

François Tanguay-Renaud: 0009-0001-0257-5153

Document Type

Special Symposium on Policing, Racial Profiling, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Abstract

CANADIAN LAW JOURNALS have never been known for going out of their way to facilitate direct conversations between legal scholars working on cognate issues. However, if there is anything to the old liberal adage that the truth is more likely to emerge from the civil yet robust debating of competing ideas, the lack of opportunities for holders of rival views to respond, in real time, to each other’s arguments is deplorable. Therefore, I wish to commend the Osgoode Hall Law Journal for convening this timely scholarly exchange on the problematic phenomenon of racial profiling in Canadian policing and, more specifically, the under-explored question of how courts should respond to it in view of Canada’s distinct legal framework. I also wish to thank Terry Skolnik, Fernando Belton, and Jeanne Mayrand-Thibert (hereinafter SBMT) for agreeing to engage in this dialogue.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Citation Information

Tanguay-Renaud, François. "Disambiguating the Wrongs of Racial Profiling in Policing and Championing Their Structural Remediation: A Reply." Osgoode Hall Law Journal 62.1 (2025) : 417-430.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.60082/2817-5069.4104
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol62/iss1/10

References

1. Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto.

2. Terry Skolnik, Fernando Belton & Jeanne Mayrand-Thibert, “The Law of Racial Profiling” (2025) 62 Osgoode Hall LJ 365 [SBMT].

3. Ibid at 368, 403-406, 414. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ss 8, 9, 15, Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11 [Charter].

4. SBMT, supra note 2 at 407-14.

5. For the general analytical framework for subsection 15(1) of the Charter, see R v Sharma, 2022 SCC 39 at para 28 [Sharma]. On the nature of recognized grounds of discrimination, see Corbiere v Canada (Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs), 1999 CanLII 687 at para 13 (SCC) (“what these grounds have in common is the fact that they often serve as the basis for stereotypical decisions made not on the basis of merit but on the basis of a personal characteristic that is immutable or changeable only at unacceptable cost to personal identity”).

6. Explicit recognitions of this idea can be found in multiple Supreme Court of Canada cases, including Quebec (Attorney General) v A, 2013 SCC 5 at para 331 [A] and, more recently, Sharma, supra note 5 at para 53. For the sake of clarity, I understand arbitrariness as a subset of unreasonableness, since arbitrary decisions are, by definition, not circumscribed by, or made for, good reasons. On this relation, see further Farrah Ahmed, “Arbitrariness, Subordination and Unequal Citizenship” (2020) 4 Indian L Rev 121 at 126-31, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/24730580.2020.1761142.

7. SMBT, supra note 2 at 415. See also at 403-406.

8. Ibid at 368, 397.

9. SMBT, supra note 2 at 404, paraphrasing R v Le, 2019 SCC 34 at para 76 [Le].

10. François Tanguay-Renaud, “Doing Away with Racial Profiling in Policing Without Doing Away with the Rule of Law” (2025) 62 Osgoode Hall LJ 309 at Part III(A).

11. See R v Storrey, 1990 CanLII 125 at 250 (SCC) (“it must be objectively established that those reasonable and probable grounds did in fact exist”); R v Chehil, 2013 SCC 49 at para 3 (“the reasonable suspicion standard . . . is a robust standard determined on the totality of the circumstances, based on objectively discernible facts”).

12. See especially R v Khill, 2021 SCC 37 at para 56.

13. SBMT, supra note 2 at 403.

14. See Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Clarendon Press, 1997) at 55-58, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/0198296428.001.0001; Philip Pettit, On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2012) at 58-59, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139017428.

15. SBMT, supra note 2 at 398.

16. Ibid at 399.

17. Ibid at 397, 403, 406.

18. As the Supreme Court of Canada has recognized, “privacy is at the heart of liberty in a modern state.” See R v Dyment, 1988 CanLII 10 at 427 (SCC).

19. SBMT, supra note 2 at 415.

20. Thomson Newspaper Ltd v Canada, 1990 CanLII 135 at 517 (SCC) [emphasis added].

21. See notably Charkaoui v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2007 SCC 9 at paras 89-91 and R v Pearson, 1992 CanLII 52 at 700 (SCC).

22. A, supra note 6 at para 331.

23. Sharma, supra note 5 at para 53.

24. See e.g. R v Evans, 1996 CanLII 248 at para 4 (SCC) (“Clearly, it is only where a person’s reasonable expectations of privacy are somehow diminished by an investigatory technique that s. 8 of the Charter comes into play”). See also R v Tessling, 2004 SCC 67 at para 18.

25. François Tanguay-Renaud, “Rethinking the Applicability of Section 8 of the Canadian Charter for the Information Age and Beyond,” SCLR [forthcoming], DOI: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5365721.

26. R v Grant, 2009 SCC 32 at para 31 [Grant]. Detentions also occur when a state agent physically takes control of an individual, and when an individual is legally required to comply with a state agent’s restrictive or coercive direction (ibid at para 44).

27. See ibid at para 44; Le, supra note 9 at para 106.

28. Justice Binnie raises this concern in his concurring opinion in Grant, supra note 26 at paras 175-80.

29. See Sharma, supra note 5 at para 28; R v CP, 2021 SCC 19 at paras 56, 141; Fraser v Canada (Attorney General), 2020 SCC 28 at para 27.

30. Skolnik himself makes this point in Terry Skolnik, “Expanding Equality” (2024) 47 Dal LJ 195 at 201.

31. SBMT, supra note 2 at 400-403.

32. See e.g. Donald L Horowitz, The Courts and Social Policy (Brookings Institution Press, 1977); Gerald E Frug, “The Power of the Purse” (1978) 126 U Pa L Rev 715; Ross Sandler & David Schoenbrod, Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government (Yale University Press, 2003); Peter W Hogg, Allison A Bushell Thornton & Wade K Wright, “Charter Dialogue Revisited—Or ‘Much Ado About Metaphors’” (2007) 45 Osgoode Hall LJ 1 at 19, DOI: https://doi.org/10.60082/2817-5069.1254.

33. Building on the jurisprudence of various provincial courts of appeal, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized these powers in R v Mann, 2004 SCC 52 [Mann].

34. SBMT, supra note 2 at 401.

35. Ibid.

36. R v Clayton, 2007 SCC 31 [Clayton].

37. R v Dedman, 1985 CanLII 41 (SCC).

38. See e.g. Mann, supra note 33 at para 17 and Clayton, supra note 36 at para 41.

39. Fleming v Ontario, 2019 SCC 45 at para 52 [Fleming].

40. R v Aucoin, 2012 SCC 66 at para 36.

41. Fleming, supra note 39 at para 42.

42. See e.g. Highway Traffic Act, RSO 1990, c H.8, s 216(1) (Ontario); Highway Safety Code, CLRQ, c C-24.2, s 636 (Quebec); Motor Vehicle Act, RSBC 1996, c 318 (British Colombia). Such legislative powers have long been controversial for facilitating racial profiling. See notably R v Ladouceur, 1990 CanLII 108 at 1267 (SCC) (Sopinka J, dissenting); Brown v Regional Municipality of Durham Police Service Board, 1998 CanLII 7198 (ONCA); Procureur général du Québec c Luamba, 2024 QCCA 1387 (leave to appeal to SCC granted, 2025 CanLII 38363 (SCC)).

43. On the justification of structural remedies in the constitutional context, see further Kent Roach & Geoff Budlender, “Mandatory Relief and Supervisory Jurisdiction: When is it Appropriate, Just and Equitable?” (2005) 122 SALJ 325 at 350; Paul S Rouleau & Linsey Sherman, “Doucet-Boudreau, Dialogue and Judicial Activism: Tempest in a Teapot?” (2010) 41 Ottawa L Rev 171.