For the purposes of its inquiry, the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s definition for "racial profiling" is: any action undertaken for reasons of safety, security or public protection, that relies on stereotypes about race, colour, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, or place of origin, or a combination of these, rather than on a reasonable suspicion, to single out an individual for greater scrutiny or different treatment.
Racial profiling is different from criminal profiling. Racial profiling is based on stereotypical assumptions because of one’s race, colour, ethnicity, etc. Criminal profiling, on the other hand, relies on actual behaviour or on information about suspected activity by someone who meets the description of a specific individual.Sorry, but when did "Yemeni" become a "race"?
Meanwhile, a memo circulated at several Canadian airports, shortly after the packages from Yemen were discovered, directs Air Canada staff to take aside any passenger who was born or is a resident of Yemen, is travelling to or transiting through Yemen, or has started a trip from Yemen. The passenger, who would have already gone through normal security, will be taken to a so-called sterile area for a more thorough search.
In order to avoid inconveniencing the other passengers on the flight, the Air Canada memo says the flight should not be delayed while the passenger is undergoing a second search; but the passenger should be rebooked on the next available flight.
Because an Air Canada spokesperson refused to comment – citing security concerns – it's not known if Transport Canada issued this order or if Air Canada is doing it on its own.
Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of CAIR-CAN, Canada's largest Muslim lobby group, said this is blatant racial profiling...
Update: The OHRC offers some examples of "racial profiling" that are verboten in Ontario:
Typically but not always, profiling is carried out by persons in positions of authority, and can occur in many contexts involving safety, security and public protection issues. Some examples of profiling presented during the inquiry include:
- law enforcement official assumes someone is more likely to have committed a crime because he is African Canadian;Is it just me, or is a lot of that list just plain bonkers? (Not the least because it sounds made up. And how exactly can you "profile" a generic "shopper"? Are "shoppers" now one of Ontario's specified victim groups?) In a sane world, employers post-9/11 would be applauded for taking extra precautions and ensuring that a prospective employee isn't involved with dangerous extemists. In Commissar Barbara Hall's kooky "rights"-crazed Trudeaupian province of Ontariostan, conducting such a background check becomes a violation of a cockamamie "human rights" code.
- school personnel treat a Latino child’s behaviour as an infraction under its zero tolerance policy while the same action by another child might be seen as normal "kids’ play";
- a private security guard follows a shopper because she believes the shopper is more likely to steal from the store;
- an employer wants a stricter security clearance for a Muslim employee after September 11th;
- a bar refuses to serve Aboriginal patrons because of an assumption that they will get drunk and rowdy;
- a criminal justice system official refuses bail to a Latin American person because of a belief that people from her country are violent; and
- a landlord asks a Chinese student to move out because she believes that the tenant will expose her to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) even though the tenant has not been to any hospitals, facilities or countries associated with a high risk of SARS.
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