MONTREAL, July 29, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Red Coalition is pleased to announce that it is offering its full support and endorsement of the STOPMTL.ca interactive platform and website where citizens can self-report their interactions with police in Montreal.
The Red Coalition is a group of like-minded people from all walks of life, shapes, colors, and sizes; fighting for one common goal, which is to eliminate the practice of racial profiling and systemic racism within Canada, while raising clarity and awareness to the mental health issues and public health problems it is causing amongst its citizens.
Join the cause here: https://redcoalition.ca/jointhecause
The Platform
The platform is a collaborative effort made by top researchers from: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), McGill University, Concordia University and University College London. The reasoning behind the initiative is to collect much needed data in-order to properly understand the relationship between the public and the SPVM (Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal). Data collection is 100% driven by the user of the platform who must be over the age of 15 in-order-to use the application and record their interactions with the police. It is an anonymous form where information can be inputted the “day-of” or even 20 years back, fully allowing the citizen to insert such important information as race, gender, ethnicity and racial background, and mode of transportation during the stop.
Why now?
In a recent 2019 independent report mandated by the SPVM and conducted by Université de Montréal criminologist Massimiliano Mulone, Université du Québec à Montréal sociologist Victor Armory and Mariam Hassaoui, a sociologist from Université TELUQ indicated that the “study, which focused on a three-year period from 2014 to 2017, found that in Montreal an Indigenous person was 4.6 times more likely to be stopped for a "street check" than a white person, and that a black person was 4.2 times as likely to be stopped. Arab Montrealer’s were twice as likely to be stopped as white Montrealer’s.” ("Street checks" are interactions with police that do not result in an arrest). Ref. CTV News Montreal https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/racial-profiling-montreal-police-release-damning-report-that-reveals-systemic-bias-by-its-officers-1.4627108
Carolyn Côté-Lussier (Lead Investigator, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique) comments:
"Community organizations do not have access to SPVM data, and their claims are often not taken seriously because they do not have the numbers to back them up," says Professor Côté-Lussier. "This is a need that has been expressed repeatedly by community organizations since the 1980s."
Lisa Kakinami, associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in collaboration with the PERFORM Centre, and affiliate faculty member of the Department of Health, Kinesiology and Applied Physiology at Concordia University comments:
"Our environment has a large impact on our physical and emotional health and well-being. But if our existing data represent only a small portion of the story, our current understanding is limited and narrow in scope. This project is the first step to expanding our worldview and filling in some of those gaps," says Lisa Kakinami, associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in collaboration with the PERFORM Centre, and affiliate faculty member of the Department of Health, Kinesiology and Applied Physiology at Concordia University.
Joel DeBellefeuille, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Red Coalition Inc. comments:
“The members of the Red Coalition and its Board of Directors are extremely pleased to endorse and provide their full support for this project by STOPMTL.ca. The collection of data provided by Montreal’s citizens will certainly give a glimpse to what is happening in the city, and how the police interact with visible minorities and of people who are not a part of that group. It will allow the city and it’s directors of police to better manage their programs and training, which will allow them to appropriate their funding more constructively after the data is released in February 2022.”
What is racial profiling and how can it affect you?
"Any action taken by one or more people in authority with respect to a person or group of persons, for reasons of safety, security or public order, that is based on actual or presumed membership in a group defined by race, color, ethnic or national origin or religion. Taken without factual grounds or reasonable suspicion, these actions can result in the person or group being exposed to differential treatment." https://www.cdpdj.qc.ca/en/lexicon#racial-profiling
Racial profiling as defined by the SPVM:
"Racial profiling refers to any actions taken by a person or persons in authority with regard-to a person or group of people, for security or public protection reasons, based on factors such as race, colour, ethnic or national origin or religion, without a real motive or reasonable grounds for suspicion, resulting in differential examination or treatment. Racial profiling also includes any action by people in a position of authority who apply a measure disproportionately to segments of the population, in particular, because of their racial, ethnic or national origin or religious affiliation, real or presumed."
https://spvm.qc.ca/en/Fiches/Details/Profiling
About the Red Coalition
The Red Coalition is a group of like-minded people from all walks of life, shapes, colors, and sizes; fighting for one common goal, which is to eliminate the practice of racial profiling and systemic racism within Canada, while raising clarity and awareness to the mental health issues and public health problems it is causing amongst its citizens.
What is the Red Coalition doing to create change?
We are asking the Minister of Public Safety Canada to enact a legislation to prohibit racial profiling by law enforcement. Further to a declared prohibition, the proposed legislation would require a law enforcement agency to confirm that it has established and maintained adequate policies and procedures designed to eliminate racial profiling, in-order-to qualify for funding under any transfer payment program held by the Minister of Public Safety.
About STOPMTL.ca
STOPMTL.ca is a collaborative project on the experience of police stops in Montreal.
The objective of STOPMTL.ca is the creation of a public map of experiences of police stops in Montreal. To create the map, we are using a participative mapping methodology, also called Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). This methodology allows for the collection of a large quantity of data on the spatial characteristics of citizens’ experiences and represents a form of “crowdsourcing” or citizen science. This methodology does not, in and of itself, assure the validity of the collected data. All data contributed to STOPMTL.ca is "open data" and is publicly accessible*. The data may be used for citizen or community mobilization, for research, and for decision-making by government actors. It is possible that the data will be combined with other data sets, for example for research purposes.
About INRS
INRS is a university dedicated exclusively to graduate level research and training. Since its creation in 1969, INRS has played an active role in Québec's economic, social, and cultural development and is ranked first for research intensity in Québec and in Canada. INRS is made up of four interdisciplinary research and training centres in Québec City, Montréal, Laval, and Varennes, with expertise in strategic sectors: Eau Terre Environnement, Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications, Urbanisation Culture Société, and Armand-Frappier Santé Biotechnologie. The INRS community includes more than 1,500 students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty members, and staff.
About McGill University
Founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1821, McGill University is Canada's top ranked medical doctoral university. McGill is consistently ranked as one of the top universities, both nationally and internationally. It is a world-renowned institution of higher learning with research activities spanning two campuses, 11 faculties, 13 professional schools, 300 programs of study and over 40,000 students, including more than 10,200 graduate students. McGill attracts students from over 150 countries around the world, its 12,800 international students making up 31% of the student body. Over half of McGill students claim a first language other than English, including approximately 19% of our students who say French is their mother tongue.
About Concordia University
Concordia is a next-generation university, continually reimagining the future of higher education. Located in the vibrant and multicultural city of Montreal, Concordia is the top-ranked university in North America founded within the last 50 years and among the most innovative in its approach to experiential learning and cross-functional research. The university annually registers 51,000 diverse and engaged students, including over 10,000 international students from some 150 countries, in its Faculty of Arts and Science, John Molson School of Business, Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science and Faculty of Fine Arts and in Concordia Continuing Education.
For more information visit: www.redcoalition.ca
Contacts:
For media inquiries: info@redcoalition.ca
Join the Cause: https://redcoalition.ca/jointhecause
Sign the e-petition: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-3349
Rubin Coward, Advocate
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubin-coward-cd-84a07926/?originalSubdomain=ca
United Black Caucus PAC
J.R.D Kwilu
E. ubcpac.can@gmail.com Tel. 204.930.8595
W. https://pacubc.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/ubcpac
Joel DeBellefeuille, Founder, Chairman, CEO, Red Coalition
E. joel@redcoalition.ca Tel. 514-434-2640
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeldebellefeuille/?originalSubdomain=ca
Instagram: https://instagram.com/dealmaker001
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DealmakerJoel
To learn more about our founder visit: https://joeldebellefeuille.com