Saskatoon police using bicycle bylaw as 'a ruse' to stop, search and catalogue Indigenous men, lawyer says

A Saskatoon defence lawyer says internal police records show officers are using the city's bicycle bylaw 'as a ruse' to stop and search Indigenous men downtown.

The city's police force has fought at two levels of court to have those records suppressed, including what a judge said about them in open court.

"Judge Monar Enweani made some very important findings," Chris Murphy said.

"Upon initial inspection, their records appear to suggest that the vast majority of people who are ticketed under the bylaw are Indigenous and the tickets are primarily issued in the Central District [downtown]."

It all began when Murphy was defending an Indigenous man who had been stopped by police while riding a bicycle early in the morning on June 28, 2021.

Murphy wanted to argue that the stop had violated the man's Charter rights. He requested police data on who had received bicycle bylaw tickets in the city from January 2020 to December 2022

The police opposed the release of the records, citing privacy concerns, but Judge Monar Enweani ordered police to produce them.

On June 27, 2023, Murphy applied to admit the records at trial and cross-examine the officers. The very next day, June 28, the Crown stayed the criminal charges against his client — even though officers had recovered a sawed-off shotgun, knife, ammunition and cocaine.

This effectively ended the case before the judge could rule on whether the bicycle stop violated the man's Charter rights, but Enweani did make some comments about the records, specifically about the vast majority of tickets going to Indigenous people.

Police then went to Court of King's Bench seeking an order preventing Murphy from publicly discussing the records, including Enweani's comments in court before the charges were stayed.

Earlier this month, Justice Naheed Bardai ruled that Murphy "could report on what transpired in open court, including providing the general description of the records set out in the judge's decision," he wrote in the March 20, 2024 ruling.

He added that "the case itself raises issues about the open court principle, racial profiling."

Police chief Dave Haye declined an interview request from CBC.

"The records produced for the purpose of litigation in this matter have not been subjected to any research which would provide the Saskatoon Police Service or the courts context beyond the narrow purpose for the matter which was before the court," he wrote in an email.