Race quiz rejected

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Calgary police will reject a request by Statistics Canada to provide a racial breakdown of accused persons. "That's the worse thing you can do, single out a particular race for a particular crime," said Insp. Jack Mullins. He said the study contravenes human rights legislation by asking a question based on ethnic origin. By mid-1993 the Canadian Center for Justice Statistics, which is conducting the study, hopes about 80 per cent of police forces in Canada will be feeding information into the system. Brian Edy, president of the Alberta Civil Liberties Association, said "the real question they want to find out is how many Native Canadians are going through the system. And we all know that's a high percentage. Police files are confidential and should remain confidential." Stats Can wants police to compile a list by 1993 of the race of suspects and victims broken down into eight groups: white, South Asian, black, Southeast Asian, aboriginal, Central and South American, Middle Eastern or unknown.