City is failing the vulnerable: committee

When it comes to social and racial profiling in Montreal, there is still work to be done, activists said Wednesday.

A public discussion on the prevalence of profiling in Montreal was held at City Hall, where a committee tasked with fighting these matters heard testimony and recommendations from 11 groups. Participants agreed that the city must do more to combat social and racial profiling.

While Montreal police adopted strategies to combat discrimination six years ago, members of the Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montreal, or RAPSIM, say homeless people continue to have their basic human rights violated.

“Arresting people who are homeless is discriminatory and counterproductive,” said Élise Solomon of RAPSIM.

She added that police often threaten to arrest homeless people as a means of abusive control, and that police presence in places frequented by homeless people can add pressure to the situation.

“This is institutional,” Solomon said.

France Labelle, RAPSIM’s president, displayed a ticket with multiple violations from the SPVM. It was given to a 16-year-old homeless youth who squeegees cars for a living. Most of the violations were related to occupying a public space or for squeegeeing.

“That is abuse,” Labelle said. The discussion was organized by the Commission sur le développement social et la diversité montréalaise and the Commission sur la sécurité publique, who will provide recommendations to Montreal’s municipal council.

RAPSIM’s recommendations — which reflected those of many other groups who presented — included one to adopt a new plan to combat social and racial profiling, including a revision of police presence in public spaces. They also stressed the importance that this plan be adapted to vulnerable people, especially First Nations people and sex workers.

“Imprisoning homeless people is expensive and useless. That money could be used for programs that help,” Solomon said.

Not only the homeless are subject to social profiling, though, according to Veronique Houle of Médecins du Monde Canada, an organization that provides medical care to vulnerable people around the world. Many of Montreal’s immigrants face discrimination through forced identification by police, which is a big problem because much of the time, the individual’s ID could be expired in his or her home country, Houle said.

“Montreal is a sanctuary city, and we must promote that.”

Will Prosper, founder of Montréal-Nord Republik, an activist group that combats racism in the borough, also called on Montreal police for more transparency. The SPVM should release the results of any investigation into racial profiling to the public, Prosper said.

“We know the SPVM has a pattern of hiding things,” he added.

Citing data from Toronto that black students in high schools were three times more likely to be suspended than white students in the 2006-07 school year, Prosper questioned whether Montreal police would be willing to give out similar data on his borough.

“How can we deny that systemic racism exists in Montreal-Nord?”

Noting the lack of race representation on the two committees, Prosper said this was representative of a bigger, institutional problem.

“Racial profiling begins with the elected officials in front of us,” he said. “It has to do with the decisions your parties make.”

While many groups criticized police for maintaining profiling, the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, a human rights group, presented a workshop on the matter for SPVM officers.

“It was very well received,” said Camil Picard, vice-president of the CDPDJ in Montreal.