Two Black safety dispatchers hired at Metrolinx lost their jobs after failing Toronto police background checks. They have no criminal records

Josslyn Mounsey and Thairu Taban had done everything right.

They stayed away from trouble while growing up in a couple of Toronto’s poorer neighbourhoods. They studied hard, as their immigrant, Black parents had told them to do, and about a year ago landed “dream” jobs as Metrolinx transit safety dispatchers, with decent pay, benefits and a generous pension plan.

After a rigorous screening process, they swore oaths and reported for work last May at the transit agency’s operations centre in a secret location in Oakville.

“It was liberating,” said Mounsey, 30, and a single mom with three children, to be hired on a 14-month contract, her foot firmly in the door. The “Canadian dream” her parents had spoken of was real. “I just felt like my life is going to begin now.”

For Taban, 24, the first day on the job, his a permanent one, was “amazing.” He remembers thinking of the kids he grew up with and the ones who are younger, and how he could tell them “it’s possible.”

And then, for both, the dream came to a crashing and bewildering end, after both failed a Toronto Police Service background check. They have never been told why.

Neither has a criminal record, but they suspect family connections are behind the decisions, rendered by police as a pass or fail, with no reasons supplied to them or to Metrolinx, in an arrangement that has since ended.

The dream, said Mounsey, now feels like “a crock of bulls—. If police have your name in their system, you’re screwed.”

In late May, Mounsey and Thairu, helped by lawyer Glen Chochla, filed nearly identical applications to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, alleging systemic racism and discrimination in the background check process and their firings, and that the system disproportionately impacts Black people.

It has been widely proven that Black citizens are subject to a higher degree of surveillance and policing techniques, such as street checks, and that they face socio-economic and other barriers that can lead to more involvement in street life, criminal records — and simply knowing people with them.

Neither Metrolinx nor the Toronto Police Services Board, named as respondents in the applications, has filed a response with the tribunal.

Any allegation of discrimination “deeply concerns us,” Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins told the Star in an email.

“Like any organization, we have more work to do. We are prepared to do that hard work and because of that commitment we have built a diverse and gender balanced” transit safety team, said Aikins.

A spokesperson for the police services board said the board had just received copies of the applications and would respond directly to the tribunal after reviewing them.

In response to Star questions, Toronto police spokesperson Connie Osborne said police do not divulge reasons for failures because employment-related information is “not under the jurisdiction of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act” and applicants sign a waiver agreeing to “parameters of the check and the outcomes.”

The police service’s own employment process is currently under a service-wide review, “looking at policies, practices and procedures with an equity lens to eliminate any potential systemic racism and discrimination,” said Osborne, and any changes will “strike a balance between the security and an equitable process.”

Lawyer Annamaria Enenajor has no connection to the case but is familiar with the allegations and has pushed for amnesty and record cleansing for people with cannabis offences in their past.

She told the Star this kind of background check, “because of the potential impact it can have on a person’s livelihood, the organizations that conduct them have to be very transparent and careful.

“And it’s so disappointing to see Metrolinx divesting its authority and its power to the TPS to, for no good reason, deny a person employment … It will disproportionately impact people from low-income neighbourhoods and Black people, because those are the ones who the Toronto police have targeted for contact, through regimes like the carding program.”

Josslyn Mounsey’s father was murdered when she was four, and she has since had no contact with family on his side. On that side, there are people, she said, involved in criminal activity. Her mom moved the family out of Regent Park to a safer neighbourhood soon after he died.

Mounsey also had an ex-boyfriend, from her early 20s, who had police trouble, and she had signed as a surety on a drug offence.

On the other side of the family are an uncle and cousin who are police officers in Durham region.

Thairu Taban’s older brother took a different path than he did, said Taban, and had a “pretty serious” criminal record. When they lived in community housing in Flemingdon Park for 15 years, Taban said he would often be mistaken for his brother by police, and asked for ID.

“He followed a path that was morally wrong,” said Taban, who spoke to the Star in a video call with Mounsey and their lawyer. “I’ve really distanced myself from him to the point where I really don’t communicate with him that much.”

Taban also moved out of the neighbourhood and lives with his mom.

Taban and Mounsey believe these connections derailed their careers, with implications for getting any good-paying emergency communications jobs where the employer uses Toronto police to do background checks, and with employers who don’t use Toronto, but typically ask if they have ever failed such a check.

(Last year, Toronto police received 194 background requests from outside agencies — including special constable at the TTC, Toronto Community Housing, the University of Toronto — and 93 per cent cleared the checks, said spokesperson Osborne.)

“Assuming those (connections) are a basis for concern at all, and I’m not sure there is here,” said Chochla, their lawyer, “communicate those concerns to the candidates and give them an opportunity to address the concerns.”

A Toronto police background check, said Osborne, “includes a full investigation by a background agent, then a review by a Sergeant and a further review by a Staff Sergeant to ensure there is no bias and that the individual file is assessed accurately by multiple people. If any agency requests us to re-assess a candidate again, we will do so.”

Metrolinx discontinued its background check relationship with Toronto police late last year after a contract ended and now uses Cobourg Police Service, Aikins said in the email response.

Aikins said the checks with Toronto police came back as either a “ ‘pass” or ‘fail’ with no further information, even upon inquiry.” The new deal with Cobourg comes with more information. It remains unclear if the switch to Cobourg is tied to these cases.

Aikins said Metrolinx currently employs 14 dispatchers and “most” are people of colour.

According to their applications, Mounsey and Taban were hired along with two successful white candidates, out of more than 1,000 applications.

After clearing a third-party check, which included a criminal record check, they started working. Pay started at $26.76 an hour, and would jump to $32.78 an hour after a nine-month probationary period. These were union jobs, their applications state, with a defined-benefit OMERS pension plan.

Metrolinx, an “equal opportunity employer” as listed on job postings, did not ask for the deeper Toronto police background check, which involves questions about connections to people with criminal involvement, until hires had been made, Aikins said. The jobs were conditional on passing that check.

Mounsey has legal and emergency telecommunications diplomas from Humber College. She passed a “vulnerable sector” police screening check in 2008, when she enrolled in another Humber program, in early childhood education. That level of criminal record check is the deepest, and looks at pardons and findings of being not criminally responsible due to mental illness.

Mounsey had previously applied to be a Toronto 911 dispatcher, and had already failed the even deeper background check with the Toronto police for that job. She didn’t expect the same, opaque “pass or fail” bar would sting her again. This was not a police job, after all.

Two days into her Metrolinx job, she went to police headquarters on College St. to be fingerprinted but was not required to undergo another background check.

Later that day, she was told she failed the check, based presumably on the earlier one. “They already put me on their blackball books,” Mounsey told the Star.

She went home, feeling “robbed,” and thinking she would never get a decent job in her field.

“And then I got a random text a month later from Thairu, telling me that he got let go.”

Taban’s check had taken longer. He was called into a room, where his supervisor broke the news. He was immediately asked to surrender his ID cards and escorted out the building.

“It hurt a lot, having to walk out,” said Taban, and even more when he broke the news to his mother. “It just broke her heart to this day.” His diploma in police foundations and certificate in emergency telecommunications, also both from Humber, had gotten him this far, and Toronto police closed the door.

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Of their cohort, the two Black candidates had been let go, while the white candidates remain.

They decided to fight to get their jobs back, and enlisted legal help.

At the heart of the failed background checks appears to be the need for dispatchers to make criminal record queries on the job through the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC), administered by the RCMP.

Aikins said in the email to the Star that access is “strictly controlled by the RCMP, access closely tracked and securely stored by dispatchers,” and that it contains information asked for by Metrolinx special constables and fare inspectors “when conducting investigations to identify suspects, check for outstanding warrants, safety alerts such (as) violence, sexual assault or weapons.”

In Mounsey and Taban’s applications, their lawyer, Chochla, noted he sought explanations for the failed tests, and he and his clients were denied them.

Both Monsey and Taban filed freedom-of-information requests with Toronto police for all police records and reports on them.

Taban received 41 pages, “none of which referenced any criminal convictions,” his application states. The material, rather, reflected his suspicions about his brother’s criminal involvement, and there were several pages that referred to Taban as “Black and as Caribbean.”

Mounsey’s package was 116 pages, not a single one referencing criminal convictions. Like Taban, several pages noted she was “Black,” and most pages related to incidents where she was the victim. There were traffic incidents, and a noise complaint, which Mounsey had made.

In their applications to the tribunal, Mounsey and Taban allege Metrolinx abdicated its “discretionary authority” on the background checks to Toronto police and “blindly accepts” the verdict without requiring police to explain.

That, the applications allege, “constitutes transfer of a crucial exercise of Metrolinx’s discretion to an institution with deep historical traditions and current practices of discriminatory policing,” which are “ingrained in our society.”

The applications also cite data from street checks, or carding, that shows Black people are more likely than white people to be stopped, questioned and documented by police.

Knia Singh, a lawyer and human rights advocate, experienced something similar as a law student at York’s Osgoode Hall. Without being told why, he was denied a ride-along with Toronto police that was part of a course. He also has no criminal record, and filed a request for his own information. Singh, who was a hip hop producer, was documented in contact cards for being with artists who had criminal records.

Singh, who is Black, did get an unofficial explanation from a senior officer for the denial: he had “associated” with people with serious records, Singh wrote in his own human rights complaint, filed in 2016, arguing he, too, had been discriminated against. He also filed a police complaint.

A police spokesperson told the Star at the time “someone with past or current criminal involvement with the police and/or someone who has past or current association to persons known to police would be reasons why a (ride-along) request would be denied.”

Repeated Star analyses of Toronto police contact-card data have shown that at the peak of the practice, upwards of 400,000 cards were filled out a year, and over the years, contained data on over a million individuals “known to police.” The practice was suspended in Toronto and is now provincially regulated.

Singh, familiar with the allegations by Mounsey and Taban but not involved, called their stories “eerily similar” to his. While police can no longer easily access historical contact-card data, Singh pointed to many other forms of police documentation as likely reasons for the failed background checks.

“I’m really disappointed that Metrolinx, such a large employer, can’t find a better way to screen potential employees,” said Singh.

Singh’s police complaint was resolved through mediation, and his human rights case is still before the tribunal.

Monsey and Taban say in their applications the alleged discriminatory practices of the police and Metrolinx are “inextricably intertwined.”

Mounsey and Taban are seeking apologies, $80,000 in damages from each respondent, permanent transit safety dispatcher jobs and back pay, plus benefits and pension contributions retroactive to their respective fire dates, along with credit for seniority purposes.

They also want the Human Rights Commission of Ontario to investigate, and supervise an anti-discrimination education and training program for staff at both organizations involved in human resources, recruiting and security checks.

When it comes to whatever material police and Metrolinx have on them, Mounsey and Taban want orders to have it removed.

In the Star interview, both Mounsey and Taban said they are also doing this for young Black people with fewer resources who have lost jobs in similar scenarios.

Much attention has been given to Black youth and the need for more supports, and police wanting to reduce gun crime, said Mounsey, “but then you’re shutting the door on the Black youth that are coming from Toronto that are trying to better their lives.

“It filters people like Thairu and I out,” she said.

Chochla said his clients’ cases send a “troubling” message to their communities.

“The more challenges that are in your background, that can and should be viewed as a tribute to your character,” said Chochla. “You’ve dealt with them and overcome them. Makes you a better person. So, judge me on my character, not where I come from, or the colour of my skin.”

Both Mounsey and Taban found other work in the meantime. Mounsey earns $22 an hour as a casual hospital worker, with no benefits. Taban is working as a dispatcher for a private security firm, earning $16.50 an hour, with some benefits, and no pension.