in si de ha lto n. co m O ak vi lle B ea ve r | T hu rs da y, Ju ly 9, 20 20 | 4 Visit atlascare.ca or call 1-833-682-0033 The first heat wave of the season inevitably generates many panicked "my A/C won't work!" calls, and this has been the case over the past few weeks. I am always proud of how the AtlasCare service team leaps into action with their usual expertise, enthusiasm, kindness and protective gear to help homeowners stay cool. Without fail, we find that many emergency repairs could have been avoided if the homeowner had enrolled in our monthly membership program. Participating customers receive a convenient reminder to schedule a safety check and system tune-up that is included in their monthly fee. These visits may identify a concern before it becomes a problem, and the fix is often much less expensive than a repair might cost if the unit breaks down. It also can save you the inconvenience of finding yourself without cooling when you need it. Becoming an AtlasCare member has many other benefits. Our priority is to help our customers have a safe, healthy home and reduce inconvenient, costly emergencies. I protect my car with regular service and I go to my doctor for an annual physical. I believe that your home's heating and cooling systems will benefit from this same approach - I know mine does. Michael Grochmal, President systems will benefit from this same approach - I know mine does. Membership can prevent costly emergencies bodies should collect demo- graphic data. "In my view, they should. And the demographic data they collect should include gender, age, race, religion, ethnicity, mental health sta- tus, disability and Indige- nous status," wrote Tulloch. "Data collection offers many benefits. It supports evidence-based public policy and decision-making, pro- motes accountability and transparency, and, if used properly, may build public confidence in policing and police oversight." He noted that with the ex- ception of gender data col- lected by the Special Investi- gations Unit, the police over- sight system in Ontario has no data infrastructure in place to understand the makeup of "complainants and alleged victims of police conduct." On this issue, Tulloch said, Ontario's police over- sight system lags behind the United States, the United Kingdom and other public sectors in Ontario. "Without data and re- search, the conversation about police violence and ra- cial profiling is dominated by allegations and anec- dotes. People are more likely to pay attention to research," wrote Tulloch. "For systemic issues, groups need research to sup- port their claims and the po- lice and policy-makers need official data to identify prob- lem-areas and develop pro- grams." He questioned how the re- lationship between race and police violence could fully be understood, how possible causes could be identified and how it could be deter- mined if policies intended to combat such issues are effec- tive, without evidence-based research. The prospect of collecting demographic data was well received by Halton Police Chief Stephen Tanner. "I am happy to do this. I believe it is the right thing to do and that now is the right time to do it," he said. "I think this is the next natural step in progressive policing." Tanner said he would need some time to work with staff to develop this program and no date has been set for when the data collection must begin. He pointed out that while many police interactions are not officer initiated but are rather the result of 911 calls, other interactions, like traf- fic stops, are.fic stops, are.f "If the officers are only looking at the offences those statistics should be propor- tionate across different rac- es and gender," said Tanner. "I think there are some concerns among police lead- ers, from a historical per- spective, but we are not liv- ing in history. We are trying to prevent history from re- peating itself." Board member and for- mer Royal Canadian Mount- ed Police Deputy Commis- sioner for Ontario and Que- bec Curt Allen called the ini- tiative critically important. Halton Police Board Chair Rob Burton said di- recting Halton police to de- velop the data initiative is an important step forward and shows the board's desire to be leaders in community po- licing. "The thing about a good reputation is you have to work on it every day in order to keep it," he said. The prospect of a demo- graphics collection program was also well received by An- drew Tyrrell, president of the Canadian Caribbean As- sociation of Halton. "Data is always a good thing and we would support the collection of data. It is something that all parties to the conversation can go back to and it is something that is measurable," said Tyrrell. "It is something that can be tracked. So, we can collect data in 2020 and see the inter- actions with the various groups and then in 2021 we can look back at the data and see if there have been in- creases or decreases and we can draw conclusions from that." Kim Jenkinson, the exec- utive director of the Halton Multicultural Council Con- nections said they are 100 per cent in favour of agencies like Halton police collecting disaggregated data. She said that data is need- ed so society can quantify and measure the inequities in its systems and start to ad- dress those inequities. One possible issue point- ed out by Jenkinson is that some communities will be afraid this data could be used to support increased inequi- ties in the treatment of vari- ous racialized groups. She said one possible so- lution is for police not to have access to the data, which is instead controlled by a com- munity group or watchdog organization. It is also worth noting that a petition calling on Hal- ton police to collect race- based data was posted on change.org in mid-June and in two weeks was signed by 1,500 supporters. Burton emphasized that when a demographics data collection program is creat- ed for Halton police the re- sults of that data collection will be made public. The plan police develop will be subject to the police board's approval. STORY BEHIND THE STORY: With police conduct towards minority groups under heavy criticism, we wanted to make the commu- nity aware that the Halton Regional Police Service is developing a demographic data collection program. We also reached out to commu- nity groups and organiza- tions to see how they felt about this plan. RESEARCH NEEDED TO SUPPORT CLAIMS: JUSTICE TULLOCH Continued from front NEWS