As Montreal Police Budgets Balloon, Racial Profiling Could Carry A Hefty Price Tag

The City of Montreal is being taken to court in a $171-million class-action lawsuit, alleging enough hasn’t been done to combat racial profiling. The Black Coalition of Quebec is leading the lawsuit, seeking $5,000 for each person who was racially profiled and arrested without a valid reason between August 2017 and January 2019. If the Coalition wins, the court will decide the amount of financial compensation.

The Black Coalition of Quebec would not provide a comment to Local 514, stating they could not comment while the case is ongoing. The SPVM did not respond to Local 514’s request for comment before the publication of this report.

Montreal's new police chief Fady Dagher, Mayor Valerie Plante and president of Montreal's police brotherhood Yves Francoeur testified in court in February. All testimonies have since been completed. Mike Diomande, the lawyer representing the Black Coalition of Quebec, told Local 514 the case is currently under analysis by the judge, which can take 6 months or more.

Data between 2014 and 2017 shows that during police "street checks", Black people were four times more likely than white people to be stopped by police and Indigenous people were five times more likely than white people to be stopped by police. Indigenous women were specifically overrepresented: they were 11 times more likely to be stopped by police than white women.

Nakuset, executive director of the Native Women's Shelter Montreal says when Indigenous women are mistreated by police, they never get justice.

There were not any Indigenous groups present to testify during this lawsuit. Nakuset said the Native Friendship Center was asked to provide a testimony, but they declined. She said Indigenous communities are burnt out from sharing their trauma. She cited the testimonies given for the residential school payouts where survivors had to share horrible details of their traumas and were not given mental health support afterwards. She said some who provided testimonies went on to commit suicide.

"Don't make me go through trauma and not have aftercare," said Nakuset.

Quebec police face more than 100 complaints for racial profiling each year. Half of these cases are in Montreal.

New Police Chief Fady Daghar was ushered in around the same time the City of Montreal approved a $63 million boost to the police budget. This makes Montreal’s police force the highest paid by MILLIONS.

In his testimony, Dagher acknowledged the existence of racial profiling within the SPVM; he however believes random stops by police are useful.

Random stops were ruled unconstitutional by Judge Michel Yergeau last October, specifically stating they are a source of racial profiling. This ruling has been appealed by the Quebec government.

During his testimony, Daghar listed awareness efforts and training to counter racial profiling within the SPVM, which have been going on for more than 20 years.

Daghar told the court, "We have racist police officers but the vast majority are not," stating that the issue often fades through training and evolution.

"In my experience working with the SPVM, there was a training, but it went in one ear and out other," said Nakuset.

She said there's no accountability for the police to absorb these trainings. She said they should be required to take an exam after the trainings and if they fail they don't get a certificate. "Not just everyone will sit and listen, because there's resistance," said Nakuset.