A Timeline

This project timeline presents the evolution of racial profiling that happens within Canadian institutions, focusing on the University of Ottawa. As a student of visible minority in the University of Ottawa, the experiences that some of my classmates and I have faced throughout the course of our studies, encouraged me to explore the system’s inner flaws. Over the last few decades, the spending on police and campus security departments has been on the rise, while at the same time, racial profiling has become a significant issue in society and on campus. Many police sergeants and university administration are aware about the long history of police departments using racial profiling to fight crime, leading to larger arrest rates and incarceration of individuals within BIPOC communities.

The North American police system continues to fail colored individuals and they need to come up with ways to reshape it for institutions to follow from. They also may worry that the problems are systemic and nothing short of a complete overhaul of police will curb the misconduct and incidents happening on campus. Some also point to the rising costs of policing without including public safety and the undue influence of police unions in maintaining the status quo in Canada. Rather than investing more in the police, it is more recommended that these funds should be towards strengthening communities and creating social safety nets that could be a better model for public safety overall. With this said, I hope that the public would understand the importance of defunding of police more. Overall, my desire for this project is to unpack those issues by researching and presenting a timeline of the increased presence of campus security and racial profiling at the University of Ottawa since 1969.