Police laid more marijuana charges on people in Rideau-Vanier Ward than the next five wards combined in 2013, according to an analysis of Ottawa police crime data.

The number of marijuana charges in Rideau-Vanier totaled 302, more than four and a half times as many as the next largest ward, Capital, with only 67 charges laid. Adjusted for population sizes, Rideau-Vanier has a rate of 6.3 charges laid per capita, while Capital’s rate sits at 1.8 charges laid per capita.

The Ottawa Police declined to comment, presumably due to a backlog after Wednesday’s War Memorial shooting and subsequent investigation.

One marijuana activist thinks people in Rideau-Vanier are unfairly targeted. Russell Barth, an Ottawa-based marijuana legalization activist, says police must be targeting youth, minorities, and low income.

“If you are poor, you are much more likely to be stopped by police. If you’re a rich white kid, you’ll never have a problem,” Barth says. Barth contends that low-level possession charges leave people with a criminal record, doing more harm than good. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police agree with this.

“I think any cop that has nothing better to do than give a 15 year old kid a ticket for possessing marijuana is incompetent, and should lose their badge,” Barth says.

However, 2011 census data reveals Rideau-Vanier’s youth between ages 15-29 make up nearly 30% of the population, well over the Ottawa percentage (21%) but only marginally larger than Capital Ward (over 26%).

According to 2006 census data,the most recent municipal data with ethnic statistics by ward, 26.8% of the population of Rideau-Vanier is a visible minority. Somerset, with a fraction of the marijuana charges laid, has 31.0% visible minority. In Capital Ward, the ward with the second-highest number of charges, 21.9% of the population was made up of visible minorities.

Eugene Oscapella, lawyer and criminology professor, does not jump to that assumption so fast. Oscapella lectures at the University of Ottawa, and in 2011 was awarded the Kaiser Foundation National Award for Excellence in Public Policy for his research on drug policy reform.

“Since it is ‘charges laid’ [and not simply ‘police incidents’] police discretion factors in,” Oscapella says.

“Are police more willing to charge people in problem areas? Is there a preference for people to be charged more often in poor areas? Or vice-versa, it could be that police see a well-off person and try to throw the book at them.

“These are the sort of questions you need to ask; Are police using their discretion in a way that people with certain characteristics over others? Police have a broad discretion… they might see a well-dressed, polite person, maybe they have the “right” skin colour, and they decide to let [that person] go.”

But Oscapella did not rule racial profiling out, noting that the United States as a “racial dimension” to petty crime. He says Ottawa needs to ask itself if it does too.

“Probably,” he says. “It’s hard to say but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was.”

In 2010, University of Montreal sociologist Chistopher McAll released a report finding that the arrest rate was double for black teens than white teens. Citing 2001 drug charges, he found that black teens caught smoking marijuana faced charges while there was not a single white teen charged with marijuana possession. The study prompted hearings from the Quebec Human Rights Commission and a damning internal study by Montreal police. 

However,  the Ottawa data do not distinguish between the three types of marijuana charges police lay: possession, possession for the purpose of trafficking (over 30 grams), and marijuana production (grow-ops). Oscapella says that makes it very difficult to distinguish how the charges are being laid, and therefore draw concrete conclusions.

Oscapella says that questions need to be asked about how the Ottawa Police use their discretion to lay charges.

“Sometimes they target certain areas… especially if crimes are more visible,” he says. “It’s possible police spend more resources targeting [Rideau-Vanier] because it has high instances of other crimes. If you have more people looking for something, you’re going to end up with more charges.”

Rideau-Vanier Councillor Mathieu Fleury, facing a municipal election Monday where crime in the ward has been a major campaign issue, could not be reached for comment.