Former police chief Philippe Pichet was indeed the victim of a “disguised dismissal” by the City of Montreal. However, the chief did not file his appeal in time; the Court therefore dismisses his lawsuit.
This is what judges Nathalie Chalifour, Scott Hughes and Steve Guénard ruled in a decision of the Court of Quebec rendered at the end of June. The legal action had been taken by the former director of the SPVM in May 2021.
“Mr. Pichet was indeed the subject of a disguised dismissal” from his position as chief inspector by the City of Montreal, the magistrates explained.
This job had been promised to him through an agreement concluded in 2018 between him and the City in which he gave up his role as chief of police of the SPVM.
It is deplorable that Mr. Pichet […] was left to his own devices, nothing more or less abandoned.
Excerpt from the judgment
“Dura lex sed lex”
“The law is harsh, but it is the law.” It was with the words of this well-known Latin phrase that the magistrates rejected Philippe Pichet’s request, citing the failure to respect a “very short” deadline of 30 days to file his request in court.
He had only one month after his dismissal to file the lawsuit, even though he was not given notice of dismissal per se. “In the absence of a municipal resolution and service of the dismissal decision, knowledge of being in a situation of dismissal triggers the 30-day period,” the judgment explains.
According to the Court, the time limit began to run on January 6, 2021, more than four months before Mr. Pichet filed his lawsuit against the City for his constructive dismissal.
It was the former police chief himself who admitted this during a cross-examination regarding extrajudicial fees claimed from the City, the judges specified.
Mr. Pichet decided to contest this decision, even though it found in his favor on the merits. His lawyers have also filed a request for judicial review, rejecting the idea that the former SPVM chief’s complaint had been filed too late.
A story that goes back a long way
Philippe Pichet was director of the SPVM from 2015 to 2017.
In December 2017, at the height of a media storm over allegations of criminal practices and embezzlement within the SPVM Internal Affairs Department, the police chief was suspended from his duties for an indefinite period.
This suspension had been recommended by “the Chamberland and Bouchard reports following a public inquiry into the protection of the confidentiality of journalistic sources during police investigations and an administrative inquiry into the SPVM’s practices in terms of internal investigations,” the judges report.
At the beginning of 2018, Mr. Pichet filed an initial appeal against the City for constructive dismissal, then for his position as director of the SPVM.
“The effects on his career will be destructive. He will bear the weight of the history of the SPVM’s internal affairs and, incidentally, that of the protection of journalistic sources; he will be isolated and his career shattered,” the Court stated in the judgment.
It is within the framework of this appeal that the transaction (amicable agreement) will be signed, guaranteeing him a position as chief inspector at the SPVM in exchange for his waiver of suing the City.
From 2018 to 2021, Philippe Pichet held various mandates within police forces in Quebec, but always without much stability, always expressing his desire to officially return to the SPVM. For example, he was chief of police in the city of Fermont on the Côte-Nord for a little over a year.
He retired from the SPVM in November 2023, after a sick leave related to depression and post-traumatic stress.
Mr. Pichet is also taking legal action against the City of Montreal in two other cases. One for damages before the Superior Court and one for psychological harassment before the Administrative Labour Tribunal.