Roundtable on “Policing, Racial Profiling and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms”

Racial profiling in policing is a problematic phenomenon in search of a solution in Canada. In its fall issue of 2025, the Osgoode Hall Law Journal will be publishing a special symposium on policing, racial profiling and the Canadian Charter, exploring what courts can and should do to help eliminate it.  This symposium is made up of two articles and two replies—by Professor François Tanguay-Renaud (Osgoode) as well as Professor Terry Skolnik (Ottawa/ASU), Fernando Belton and Jeanne Mayrand-Thibert. It will be published in the lead up to the Supreme Court of Canada’s hearing in the case of Attorney General of  Quebec v. Joseph-Christopher Luamba, in which the issue of racial profiling in policing is at the forefront.

In anticipation of this important hearing, the Nathanson Centre and the Osgoode Hall Law Journal have pooled their resources to convene an in-person roundtable on the role of Canadian courts in countering this problematic phenomenon. The roundtable will seek to foster an informed, civil, and constructive discussion about paths forward, using the OHLJ symposium and the lower court decisions in Luamba as background. Participants will include leading legal academics and practitioners working on the issue.