Montrealers Seek Compensation and Accountability for Racial Profiling

The Black Coalition of Quebec  is taking the City of Montreal to court for a $171-million class-action lawsuit, alleging enough hasn’t been done to combat racial profiling. The Black Coalition is seeking $5,000 for each person in Montreal who was racially profiled and arrested without a valid reason between August 2017 and January 2019.

The Black Coalition of Quebec would not provide a comment, as they said this is an ongoing case. The City of Montreal did not respond to a request for comment.

Local 514 spoke with Lynda Khelil from la ligue des droits et libertés and Nakuset from the Native Women's Shelter about racial profiling in Montreal. 

Quebec police face more than 100 complaints for racial profiling each year. Half of these cases are in Montreal.

Data between 2014 and 2017 shows that during police "street checks", Black people were four times more likely than white people to be stopped by police and Indigenous people were five times more likely than white people to be stopped by police.

Indigenous women were specifically overrepresented: they were 11 times more likely to be stopped by police than white women.

"When Indigenous women are mistreated by police, we never get justice," said Nakuset.

There were not any Indigenous groups present to testify during this lawsuit. Nakuset said the Native Friendship Centre of Montreal was asked to be involved in the lawsuit, but they declined. She said Indigenous communities are burnt out from sharing trauma. Nakuset cited residential school payouts, where survivors had to share their traumatic experiences and never received mental health support as a result of sharing this trauma. She said some survivors died by suicide afterwards.

"Don't make me go through trauma and not [provide] aftercare," she said. 

Nakuset says she and other Indigenous organizations instead focus on supporting their people.

"At end of the day – are you safe from police?," said Nakuset, explaining that this is the focus. "Trying to build bridges is not easy," she said. "It's not for us to chase [the police and government]."

She said some of the services provided to support Indigenous people, includes the Iskweu project. When a family member goes missing and a family member wants to make a claim to the police, a staff member can do so on their behalf. Nakuset explained that people don't feel comfortable sharing that a family member went missing to the police as often action isn't taken.

Human rights organization, la ligue des droits et libertés is asking the Quebec government to ban random street checks. They believe street checks violate human rights. The practice is at the root of racial profiling and that the practice is not among officer’s powers.

"Police in Quebec don't have the authority to do street checks, they don't have power to do this," said Khelil, adding that they are still conducting street checks because of the will of politicians. "Because they are not putting an end to this practice, we asked the government to ban [street checks]."

Khelil explained when a person being is experiencing a street check, it's hard for a citizen to express their rights, because of the dynamic between the person and cop. She said that often young black people explain that they have rights and cops don't react well. The police officer may see this as contestation of their authority and it escalates.

"The only solution, if the government is taking racism seriously, is to put an end to the practice," said Khelil.