On August 27, 2013, The Honourable Madeleine Meilleur, Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services for Ontario made the announcement that the province will now permit all frontline police officers to use tasers.
The government’s announcement comes in the wake of the fatal shooting of Mr. Sammy Yatim on a Toronto streetcar, and it must be placed in the context of serious public concerns about police services and officer training arising from that incident.
The first civil right is the right to life. What went wrong in the Sammy Yatim shooting was not that there were no tasers available: what went wrong is that an officer killed a harmless young man who was already physically isolated, while no other officer made any visible attempt to de-escalate the situation or prevent a second-round of shots from being fired. The officers’ actions causing Mr. Yatim’s death are hard evidence of police training that is out of touch with the needs of citizens and is indicative of a disproportionate and inappropriate warzone mentality.
It is OCLA’s position that policing in Ontario needs to go in the opposite direction from increased weaponry, towards understanding communities, mediating, and finding solutions on the ground that respect the rights and freedoms of all Ontarians. The serious flaws in officer training exposed by the Yatim shooting cannot be corrected by adding more tasers and taser training.
