“It happened to me once”: five Regent Park carding stories

On January 1, police chief Bill Blair quietly suspended “carding,” the Toronto police practice of routinely stopping, questioning and logging the personal information of people not suspected of any specific crime. Carding has been especially controversial since 2012, when the Star published data showing that black people are far more likely—in some parts of the city as much as ten times more likely—to be stopped than people with lighter skin. Regent Park, with about 75 per cent of its population belonging to one or another visible minority group, is one of downtown Toronto’s most diverse neighbourhoods. We asked people there to tell us about their experiences with random police stops.