TORONTO, January 21, 2009 - The Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) welcomes the National Black Police Association (NBPA) of Britain to Canada. The NBPA's visit is intended to explore with Canadian institutions issues of institutional racism and discrimination within the ranks of the RCMP against members of racialized communities in light of the CHRT's Tahmourpour decision (2008).
The CHRT found that Mr. Tahmourpour established a prima facie case with regard to his complaint of racial discrimination against the RCMP. The CHRT's decision also made reference to systemic racism within the ranks of the RCMP by noting "during the year that Mr. Tahmourpour was in attendance at Depot, the attrition rate for visible minority cadets was 16.98%, and for non-visible minority cadets it was 6.88%. The failure rate was 19.6% for visible minorities and 7% for non-visible minorities."
"Institutional racism is a concept that we worked very hard in the U.K. to combat. And we are very anxious to exchange best practices with the RCMP to address these issues", said the NBPA'. "There is sufficient evidence to indicate that institutional racism is at play in the case of Mr. Tahmourpour and there is a need to eliminate all forms of racism and racial discrimination from our public institutions", commented CRRF's Executive Director, Dr. Ayman Al-Yassini.
A media conference is planned for January 27, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. at the CRRF's offices located at 4576 Yonge, Suite 701, Toronto, ON. The conference will include NBPA President,NBPA Vice President, Tony Smikle, the CRRF Executive Director, NCVM 2nd Vice-President,Devoe Dyette, and Mr. Tahmourpour.