Judy Haiven takes a close look at the human rights tribunal that found Halifax police discriminated against a Black man who was ticketed for jaywalking on Gottingen Street. “We cannot treat the police force in Halifax as though it has a few bad apples. We cannot assume that racism within the police — or any institution — is the exception,” she writes.
Supporters of Equity Watch rallied outside of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission to urge the Commission to do its job. You read that right – what the demonstrators demanded was that the Commission do its job. Judy Haiven explains.
Press release: On 3 February 2021, Kathy Laird, a long-time human rights activist and former CEO of the Ontario Human Rights Legal Support Centre, appeared on an Equity Watch webinar touting the benefits of Ontario’s tripartite human rights regime for Nova Scotia.
Webinar: What’s wrong with the NS Human Rights regime? Special guest: Kathy Laird, former CEO, Ontario Human Rights Legal Support Centre.
Raymond Sheppard: Since our August Black Human Rights Matter rally I have been contacted by 32 African Nova Scotians who all give the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission a failing grade.
Equity Watch calls for major structural changes to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission (NSHRC) to deal with the many complaints about its fairness and timeliness that have been raised over the years. The organization lays out its critique and recommendations in Justice Impeded, a well-researched and detailed 50-page report that was launched through a virtual press conference this morning.
Legal arguments in the appeal of a Nova Scotia human rights board decision about the institutionalization of people with physical or intellectual disabilities continued today. Intervenors in the case argued that the systemic nature of the discrimination must be acknowledged. There is no discrimination, lawyer Kevin Kindred countered for the province.
After Premier McNeil’s surprise apology for systemic racism in the justice system and the harm it has done, he announced the formation of a design team “to reimagine a system of justice in Nova Scotia”. We talk with Robert Wright, spokesperson for the DPAD coalition, to find out more about its proposals for an African Nova Scotian Justice Institute and a Policing Strategy, and to better understand its criticism of the provincial justice initiative.
Black Nova Scotians and allies rallied outside the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission offices on Spring Garden Road. The NSHRC is reluctant to pursue race-based human rights violations while its employees often lack a lived understanding of racism, protesters say. And the commission isn’t listening.
Judy and I and our two sons have fought our entire lives against all forms of discrimination, racial and anti-Semitic. And we have paid for it. During one incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan in Toronto where we organized resistance, somebody broke into our apartment and painted anti-Jewish slogans on the walls. My bruises from confronting white supremacists have healed. But, even in my 70s, I am still willing to challenge hatred and bigotry wherever I find it. Disappointingly, several of the attacks have come from the institutional Jewish organizations that felt uncomfortable with our criticism of Israeli policies and actions.