Chef Dagher’s hot potato

Far from the spotlight, the Montreal police chief is juggling an eminently political hot potato. This hot potato is shaped like a small badge worn by some of its police officers.

This badge is not part of the official SPVM uniform. It is a black and white Canadian flag crossed horizontally by a thin blue line.

The question that Chief Fady Dagher must decide: should this badge be prohibited or permitted by the SPVM?

For the average citizen, it’s just that: a badge.

For police officers, it is a symbol of police solidarity which should not be banned by the SPVM¹.

And for anti-racist activists and racialized Montrealers, the TBL badge is a symbol of oppression appropriated by the American extreme right which should be banned by the SPVM.

After years of reflection within the Montreal police, after several promises to resolve a question which crossed three branches of the SPVM (Sylvain Caron, Sophie Roy and Fady Dagher), it will be up to Chief Dagher to decide by the end of the year.

Only one certainty: whatever his decision, Chief Dagher risks making people unhappy.

It remains to be seen whether these disgruntled people will be its police officers who feel they are poorly supported or the Montrealers who consider that the badge crossed by a thin blue line is only a racist symbol.

Before going any further, a word on this thin blue line.

In English, we say “Thin Blue Line”. Blue is traditionally the font color. And this thin blue line – the police – is all that protects society from chaos, in Anglo-Saxon jargon.

For almost a century, this expression did not arouse any particular controversy. It has been used by police officers and lawyers, it has been used in television series titles and in a famous documentary by American filmmaker Errol Morris.

And over the years, the phrase “Thin Blue Line” has become something of a symbol of solidarity within police ranks.

Then, in 2014, a young African-American man named Michael Brown was killed by police in Missouri. This was the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, aiming to denounce the police violence of which African-Americans are disproportionately victims.

In response to the BLM movement, police officers launched the “Blue Lives Matter” movement, to highlight that being a police officer in the United States is a dangerous profession. We have seen a proliferation of badges worn by American police officers, made of a black and white American flag crossed by a thin blue line.

The problem is that the American extreme right has used this flag in its propaganda and iconography in recent years.

For example, as early as 2017, the TBL flag was waved by neo-Nazis in a deadly rally in North Carolina ².

From then on, the patch of the American flag crossed by a blue line worn by American police officers became politically radioactive.

In Canada, the RCMP bans its Canadian version, as do the Calgary police.

And since an anti-sanitary demonstration in spring 2021³where SPVM police officers were photographed wearing the famous TBL badge, the SPVM promised a decision… Which never came.

Since the end of 2020, an ethics committee has looked into the issue, a “dress and maintenance” committee has done the same. The reflection began when Sylvain Caron was chef, continued under the leadership of the one who succeeded him temporarily, Sophie Roy.

And it is Fady Dagher who must decide.

This badge is seemingly innocuous, a simple Canadian flag crossed by a thin blue line.

But in reality, in a world where symbols are not trivial, Fady Dagher’s decision risks setting off a storm. Already, a year and a half ago, Mayor Plante expressed her discomfort in front of this badge⁴.

On the one hand, you have the Montreal police officers, for whom the expression “Thin Blue Line” has been a symbol of solidarity between police officers for decades.

These police officers who, in Montreal as elsewhere, feel unfairly criticized from all sides. Accused of racism and police brutality, they feel rejected.

Banning the TBL badge risks accentuating the reality of police disengagement.

On the other side, you have racialized citizens who have noticed a rise in the far right since Trump, with increasingly uninhibited racist speeches. These citizens see that Montreal police officers wear a badge taken over by the far right.

If the TBL badge is authorized by the SPVM, it will be an opportunity for anti-racist activists to claim that this is another “proof” that the police are inherently racist, that they should be defunded. and even dismantled.

Allow Montreal police officers to wear this divisive badge? Or ban it? This is the hot potato that Chef Dagher is juggling behind the scenes at the moment. He thinks, he consults.

And in this new debate where nuance is absent, Chief Dagher is plunged into an old dilemma that has always gripped police chiefs here and elsewhere: how to resolve a difficult question without demotivating the troops?