Two Toronto police officers have been branded liars and a 29-year-old man pronounced a victim of racial profiling in what is believed to be the first “driving-while-black” acquittal in Canadian history, wrote Christie Blatchford in The Globe & Mail Sept. 17. Why did the police single out Kevin Khan one October Monday, at about noon, and then decide to search his car? “Because,” Judge Molloy wrote, “he was a young black male driving an expensive Mercedes.” Khan is a 1998 graduate of York University’s concurrent BA/B.Ed. program and at the time of his arrest in October of 2001 was on medical leave from his job as a teacher with the Toronto District School Board. He is also a successful real-estate broker.
BMO is Barrie’s future
Barrie hopes the arrival of the Bank of Montreal’s data centre will attract other similar white-collar businesses, reported The Barrie Examiner Sept. 17. For the bank, it makes economic sense: Barrie is cheaper than Toronto. “What do they say about real estate? Location, location, location,” said Bernie Wolf, economics professor with York University’s Schulich School of Business. The service industry, he added, is also vital to Canada’s gross domestic product.
On air
- Zelda Abramson, sociology professor in York’s Faculty of Arts, was interviewed for a documentary on the high rate of hysterectomies in North America and the negative impact on women, aired on CBC TV’s “The Nature of Things” Sept. 16.