Last Wednesday morning, the acting director of the SPVM, Sophie Roy, one of its assistant directors, Vincent Richer, and a former assistant director, Jean-Ernest Célestin, showed up at a hotel in Old Montreal for the most important interview of their career: the one that could have enabled them to become the director of the second largest police service in Quebec.
They spent hours preparing, taking time off and even weeks of vacation to be ready to answer any questions from the members of the selection committee. Believing in their chances, some would even have had recourse to a consultant so as not to miss their shot.
According to our information, a total of 10 candidates applied for the competition for director of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).
But all those who did not have the equivalent of a director or deputy director rank in a high-level police force were dismissed out of hand.
Roy, Richer and Célestin were at the height of the race, but in the week leading up to the interview, conflicting information circulated about the number of applicants, and the shadow of a fourth candidate, coming from outside, started to hover.
The three candidates displayed began to be inhabited by doubt when they crossed paths for the interview on Wednesday morning and learned that indeed, a fourth and final mystery candidate – who some believed to be a woman – had also been called, but in the afternoon.
These candidates then began to make connections. The City of Montreal had already summoned the population and the media to the presentation of the new police chief the day before the interviews.
How could a leader who has not even been met by the selection committee yet be able to present his vision publicly the very next day, if he were chosen?
At the end of the afternoon, Wednesday, in turn, the candidates Roy, Richer and Célestin received a call from an employee of the human resources department of the City of Montreal telling them that they had not been chosen. .
When Sophie Roy learned of it, she would have called Vincent Richer to offer him the interim, so she was sure that he was the one who had obtained the iron throne.
Much to the surprise of M.me Roy, he informed her that he too had been dismissed.
At 6:02 p.m., Pascal Robidas of Radio-Canada announced that the new head of the SPVM, this famous fourth mystery candidate, was Fady Dagher, director of the Longueuil agglomeration police department (SPAL), who had previously worked for 25 years for the SPVM.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, PRESS ARCHIVES
Fady Dagher at a press conference with Mayor Valérie Plante on Thursday
The interviews were conducted very professionally, we were told. But by making a plus one, candidates and their entourage question themselves and think that the choice had been made on Mr. Dagher for a long time.
They believe the dice were loaded and the process bogus.
Invited to present his vision
The position of SPVM director was posted by the City of Montreal for 22 days, from Thursday, October 13 to Friday, November 4, at 11:59 p.m.
On the morning of November 2, Fady Dagher, in an interview with Paul Arcand on 98.5 FM, declared that he would not apply for the post of director of the SPVM. But when the formidable host asked him: “But if we come to get you? “, Fady Dagher replied that he would not go into the hypotheses, while visibly eager to change the subject.
Friday morning, again at Paul Arcand, he lifted the veil a little on his arrival at the head of the SPVM. He said that last summer, Martin Prud’homme, new assistant director of public security at the City of Montreal, called him “to explain his approach to Longueuil”.
Then Fady Dagher added that during “the progress of the process of appointing the director of the SPVM” – we do not know exactly when – Martin Prud’homme called him to apply.
Mr. Dagher refused, but Martin Prud’homme persevered, asking him to “come and explain his approach”.
Fady Dagher told Paul Arcand that on November 2, he had already been invited to come and make a presentation to the committee, but that it was during the interview that he felt the current flow.
Not the only one
Mr. Dagher is not the only police director to have received a call from Martin Prud’homme in this leadership race: Pierre Brochet, chief of the Laval police department, was also allegedly courted. Mr. Brochet would have decided to embark on the process, before changing his mind.
In interview with The PressMr. Prud’homme did not want to confirm the invitation made to Pierre Brochet, but he told us that he “had discussions with a lot of people” from the police community from the moment he arrived in office, in last spring.
He says he invited Mr. Dagher after the launch of the competition, on October 13, to present his vision during the interview, and that the director of the SPAL submitted his curriculum vitae.
Martin Prud’homme affirms that it is normal that for such a position, qualified people are solicited.
He rejects the rumors that he contacted people because the City was dissatisfied with the applications received or because they wanted to favor an outside candidate.
He explains that before October 13, he could not know who had applied and that candidates often wait until the last minute, in this case November 4, to come forward.
“We had four good candidates who could have had the job, but Fady Dagher had the best performance during the interview and the choice was unanimous,” said Mr. Prud’homme.
The latter and the City have therefore opted for the one they believe to be the best candidate, and readers will surely think that, in any case, the appointment process works this way in many organizations, private or public.
At the end of his one-year term as provisional administrator of the SPVM, Martin Prud’homme published a final report in October 2018.
In this report, about the process of promotion and appointment of executives, it is written that “mechanisms have been put in place to ensure the fairness and transparency of the process, and to maintain the confidence of executives” .
This does not appear to have been the case for at least three disappointed candidates.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.