Fady Dagher arranged to meet me at Café Olimpico in Mile End, one of his favorite cafés.
The head of the Longueuil agglomeration police department (SPAL) sits at the far end of the terrace, in a corner. An old habit, inherited from his years as a double agent in the early 1990s.
First police director from immigration to Quebec, Fady Dagher has long been an extraterrestrial figure in the police world. It is still a little, he admits. Convinced that the police of the future must at all costs move from a crime-fighting culture to one of prevention and consultation.
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Born in Ivory Coast to parents of Lebanese origin, Fady Dagher dreamed of being an architect when he was a child. Thereafter, the plan was to follow in the footsteps of his father, who went from a small trader selling milk, sugar and peanuts in his early days to a successful businessman, running the bicycle business. Dagher Cycles.
In August 1985, when young Fady, aged 17, and his older brother set off for Montreal to continue their studies, it was with the aim of one day taking over the family business.
The plan was derailed in 1990, following a chance meeting with a police officer in an eyewear store on Sainte-Catherine Street where Fady Dagher worked as an assistant manager while pursuing his studies in accounting.
Dagher was intrigued by the policeman’s work.
“Is it fun? Do you like what you do? »
It was at the time when the Montreal police were looking to hire university candidates, from visible minorities, who did not have the traditional technical background. The policeman told him about it. He invited him to do an internship just to see.
We spent an evening patrolling and that was it! I loved the experience.
Fady Dagher
He said nothing to his parents before completing his training at the National Police School in Nicolet.
Why ? “Because for us, the profession was associated with corruption, violence, repression… So for my dad, there was no question of me becoming a cop! »
There was no way…until he saw his son, class president, put on the uniform and he was the proudest of fathers.
“Afterwards, he was my best mentor. »
His eyes mist when he recalls the memory of his father, who died on September 16, 2017. “It’s a great loss…”
The day before he died, he had asked his son to bring him “knefé bi jeben” for lunch – a Lebanese cheese dessert.
“I told him: ‘Perfect, I’ll bring it to you tomorrow morning…’ But the next day, it was too late. »
When they called him from the hospital to say, “Come on, he’s not well,” he knew.
“I handled everything like a policeman. I showed zero emotion during the entire funeral preparation. That day, when the coffin came down, I collapsed. It was my son who caught up with me. »
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His father inspired him with his righteousness and his talents as a unifier. “He was vice-president of the World Lebanese Union. He was a merchant, but also a politician, public in his own way. He was very involved in the Muslim, Christian and Jewish community. He always arrived as a mediator. He liked to make reconciliation, to make sure that people do not stay between them. »
This heritage is certainly no stranger to the humanist values that drive the police chief.
We owe him the first policy in Canada on racial and social profiling, in 2012. A problem he knows intimately for having himself been a victim, the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center.
“There really was a before and an after for me. »
Before ? “I really felt like a Canadian, a full-fledged Quebecer. »
After ? “I felt like a second-class citizen. »
As soon as he let his beard grow a little, they said to him: “Hey! Bin Laden’s cousin! »
Above all, there were extremely humiliating episodes when he had to travel. “For me, it was clear that it had become systemic as a treatment for me. »
He might be a policeman, hold a Canadian passport and travel for work, he might take care to shave well before going to the airport, to the borders, he was above all Arab and therefore suspicious.
We put it aside, we checked it, we searched it. He always felt the stress rising in him, even if he saw being a policeman as a form of protection. “Despite everything, once, I had the right to a strip search when I was supposed to go to the United States. »
In 2007, when he wanted to go to Australia to participate in the Olympic Games for firefighters and police officers, he was informed a few weeks before departure that because of his origins, additional checks had to be made before granting him a Visa. That he was an experienced police officer, at the time commander of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), changes absolutely nothing.
When he is given the green light in extremis, four hours before his flight, he feels so hurt that he refuses to go.
“I had sworn to myself not to set foot in this country again. »
Eventually, ironically, he returned to Australia in 2019 for a conference on what? Counterterrorism!
Twelve years after distrusting him as if he were a sleazy cousin of bin Laden, he was invited in as an expert in counter-terrorism.
What does he take away?
The problem is the system, not the individual. The customs officer who put me aside, I was of course furious with him. But he wasn’t the problem. I knew he had a whole system behind him.
Fady Dagher
It’s the same for the police culture in Quebec.
“We focus a lot on the individual who makes a mistake or a mistake. We forget that he is the product of a system that has educated and valued him in this way for years. This is what needs to be changed. »
This is what needs to be reinvented, despite the headwinds.
Questionnaire without filter
Coffee and me: cappuccino in the morning. Very early, on my way to work, on foot or by bike, I take a break in two cafes before crossing the river.
The people I would like to gather at the table, dead or alive: Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, my dad, Amin Maalouf, Lucien Bouchard, Iranian taekwondo player Kimia Alizadeh, Zidane.
On my tombstone, I would like it to be inscribed: He tried and he succeeded.
A trip that makes me dream: a Compostela-type pilgrimage journey. Two, three weeks of walking and thinking, backpack.
The last time I cried: I almost cried earlier, talking about my dad.
Who is Fady Dagher?
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Fady Dagher
- Born June 11, 1968 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast
- Worked at the SPVM from 1992 to 2017. He was notably a patroller, investigator, supervisor and manager.
- Appointed Director of SPAL in February 2017
- Never tie his shoelaces. His way of saying, “You won’t tie me anywhere!” »
- Father of two girls and a boy aged 23, 22 and 20
- Instigator of the RESO police project (Network of social and organizational assistance), which aims to ensure that only half of the SPAL police officers respond to 911 calls while the other half work in the community.