Although the Montreal police force is moving in the right direction, Quebec's appeal is just the latest example of how the province is attempting to deal with racism while officially denying its systemic nature.
In unveiling new measures to combat racial profiling by law enforcement, the Quebec government has announced it is going to do the one thing racialized communities, citizens from diverse backgrounds and civil liberties organizations have begged it not to do. It is going to appeal a recent court ruling that struck down the random police checks that disproportionately target Black men and other minorities.
But don’t worry: Public Security Minister François Bonnardel and Christopher Skeete, the minister responsible for the fight against racism, still have a strategy to ensure cops don’t racially profile Quebecers for driving a nice car, laughing too loud, taking out the recycling or eating ice cream while Black (or Asian, or Indigenous, or Arabic), among other ridiculous situations in which minorities have arbitrarily fallen under the scrutiny of police in recent years.
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Bonnardel said Friday that random street checks are simply “too important” a policing tool to allow the judgment to stand. Premier François Legault has previously justified them in the context of quelling a rise in gun violence. Instead, the government pledged to teach young recruits at the police academy about bias, educate current officers, encourage departments to build bridges with the communities that feel stigmatized, and modernize disciplinary procedures for cops who breach citizens’ rights.
In essence, the government plans to curtail racial profiling without actually putting an end to a practice that so often gives rise to it, and which Quebec Superior Court Justice Michel Yergeau deemed unconstitutional.
Montrealer Joseph-Christopher Luamba, 22, challenged the law allowing police to pull over citizens without probable cause after being stopped at least 10 times in 18 months, as both a driver and a passenger, mostly for no particular reason.
The appeal is just the latest example of how Quebec is attempting to deal with racism while officially denying its systemic nature.
Yergeau, in his meticulous, thoughtful and thorough judgment, identified random spot checks as “a vector, a safe conduit even, for racial profiling against the Black community” — which sounds pretty systemic. So any effective response to this violation of rights should not involve leaving it in place.
The government simply saying it’s going to eliminate racial profiling will not make it so.
After all, “racial profiling as part of policing procedure is rarely expressed in a direct fashion,” Yergeau noted. “It occurs in an insidious manner, as a result of prejudices and stereotypes, or in the name of norms that seem neutral, but in all reasonable probability, end up raising doubts about the motive of the intervention.”
But there are more concrete reasons to doubt Quebec’s new strategy will have much effect.
In 2019, a panel of independent experts crunched the data and confirmed what anecdotal reports had been suggesting for years. Montreal police were “humbled” to learn minorities, particularly from Black and Indigenous backgrounds, were many times more likely to be approached by police. Rather than rescind the policy, however, then-Montreal police Chief Sylvain Caron hired a consultant, developed sensitivity training for officers and committed to documenting interventions in order to track them.
Well intentioned though the culture change Caron initiated might have been, the incidents of racial profiling have continued to pile up.
Just days after the landmark ruling invalidating spot checks (with a six-month grace period), Montreal police stopped and handcuffed Brice Dossa for trying to get into his own car, before even running the plates. Dossa then had to wait 15 minutes because the officers couldn’t find the key to unlock the cuffs — a situation he understandably said left him “humiliated.”
Quebec’s move to preserve a law that is the source of so much grievance is out of step — once again — with the direction in which Montreal is heading.
With the documented proof of racial profiling and the Office de consultation publique de Montréal report on addressing systemic racism, the city has gone to great lengths to try to improve policing in this diverse metropolis. The departure of Caron provided an opportunity to gather input from community groups and various stakeholders on the qualities and vision the next police chief will require.
After a long process, Montreal last week announced the nomination of Fady Dagher, who revolutionized the approach to policing in next-door Longueuil. Born in Lebanon and raised in Côte d’Ivoire before immigrating to Canada, he said he has not only experienced racial profiling, but admitted to being guilty of it as an officer.
Dagher’s honesty will help him with his first priority as Montreal’s next police chief, which is to build bridges with minority communities in a city where a third of the population has diverse origins.
Skeete, on the other hand, might have a harder time with his own efforts.
Saying he “understands” the concerns of racialized Quebecers fed up with being stopped by police, the new minister responsible for the fight against racism said Friday he, too, will be embarking on a listening tour.
But it will be difficult for a government that still denies systemic racism exists, while choosing to defend a discriminatory law that perpetuates it, to earn the trust of racialized Quebecers.
ahanes@postmedia.com
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