Called to testify on February 15 in the context of a class action brought by the League of Blacks, the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, declared that she did not have a “magic wand” to stop racism and racial profiling.
As representatives of several community organizations and the defense of rights, we strongly deplore the lack of overall vision and determination on the part of the administration of the City of Montreal in the fight against racial and social profiling by the Montreal Police Service (SPVM). We wonder about the real will to act of the administration, while we observe an abandonment of certain flagship measures that it nevertheless undertook to implement several years ago to fight against these forms of systemic discrimination against Indigenous, racialized and marginalized populations.
Few remember that in June 2017, two permanent commissions of the Montreal agglomeration held a major public consultation on the fight against racial and social profiling.
Following the submission of numerous briefs and the hearing of more than twenty organizations and institutions, a report containing 31 recommendations was submitted in September 2017, all of which were adopted by the executive committee in March 2018.
A revision of municipal regulations tableted by the Plante administration?
One of the recommendations consisted of revising all of the City of Montreal’s regulatory provisions that could induce racial and social profiling, an action that is, it should be remembered, recommended by the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la personne et des droits de la personne et des droits de la personne of youth since 2010. Thus, in 2018, an important and innovative project was initiated by the City, in concert with various organizations, including the signatories of this letter. The table was set to repeal or modify the first 13 regulatory provisions that generate profiling and judicialization (misuse of street furniture, soiling of the public domain, emission of audible noise, consumption of alcoholic beverages in the public domain, presence in a park after it is closed, etc.).
Since community and rights organizations submitted their briefs to the City in 2020, the ball has been in the administration’s court. However, no progress has been made for two years. Has this key commitment been relegated to oblivion by the administration? Everything leads us to believe so, and we denounce this situation.
A leadership that has been fading since 2017
The report resulting from the 2017 consultation explicitly recognized the existence and persistence of racial and social profiling practices, in particular exercised by the SPVM, while the police department still often spoke of “perceptions of profiling”. The municipal administration undertook to analyze municipal regulations (as mentioned previously) as well as SPVM data on police stops (after years of resistance from the police).
She also undertook to put in place the best way to document police interventions and to intervene with the Government of Quebec on the limited potential of recourse to police ethics for marginalized and racialized populations in cases of police abuse, rights violations and profiling. It also had to produce an exhaustive and concrete annual report of the actions that the SPVM takes to fight against profiling. Lastly, it undertook to develop an overall strategy and an integrated plan in the fight against profiling, which would include all the actions to be carried out and would ensure better harmonization between them.
To the report of this consultation was added in 2020 that of the major public consultation on racism and systemic discrimination held by the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM).
Admittedly, initiatives have been initiated, but the whole thing undeniably lacks an overview and scope in relation to the City’s commitments and our expectations.
The fight against profiling requires showing determination and hearing the voices of people from the communities who experience profiling. It demands that the political authorities assume their responsibilities in terms of protecting the rights and freedoms of citizens, and take charge of the fight against racial and social profiling, which has been left for too long in the hands of police services resistant to change. For as Justice Yergeau of the Superior Court said in the Luamba decision on wanton traffic stops and racial profiling: “Charter rights can no longer be left in the wake of an improbable moment of epiphany police forces. »
Actions that target the sources of profiling have been known for a long time. Some of them were adopted five years ago by the same municipal administration, which is slow to put them in place. In this context, lamenting that magic wands don’t exist is rather ironic and frankly lacking in ambition. When will we see real leadership from the City of Montreal in the fight against racial and social profiling?
* Co-signatories: Marion Bertrand-Huot, interim director of the Conseil québécois LGBT; Annie Savage, Director of the Support Network for Single and Homeless People of Montreal (RAPSIM); Me Donald Tremblay, Executive Director of the Mobile Legal Clinic; Root, director of the Coalition of LGBTQ+ Youth Groups