Police surveillance report ‘whitewash,’ objector says
Safety panel concludes it is satisfied by quality of city’s police practices
The City of Montreal’s public safety committee released its report on the Montreal police’s spying on journalists Monday but its conclusions were far from unanimous.
Commonly known as Spygate or the “Lagacé affair,” the committee was asked to look into why and how four journalists were tracked or surveilled by the Montreal police: Patrick Lagacé, Monique Néron, Félix Séguin and Fabrice de Pierrebourg.
There were 24 warrants approved to track Lagacé, a columnist for La Presse, through his cellphone GPS, and to see with whom he had been in communication.
Lagacé was not under investigation himself, but police wanted to know who in the police force was leaking information to journalists.
In an 11-page report, the committee, led by Villeray — SaintMichel — Park Extension borough Mayor Anie Samson, said it was “reassured” and “satisfied” by the rigour and quality of Montreal police practices.
As such, it had no formal recommendations to make and only suggested there was a need to establish a definition of “journalist” and look at best practices elsewhere in the world to make police processes more compatible with the protection of journalistic sources.
Projet Montréal, the official opposition at city hall, was not reassured, however.
Its minority report points out that the committee heard only from the Montreal police itself before drawing its conclusions after three work sessions. It did not hear from any journalists, experts or impartial observers.
In fact, what the committee takes as proof of rigour on the part of the police — that between 97.5 per cent and 99.2 per cent of warrants they requested over the last three years were approved by a justice of the peace — is what Projet Montréal deems proof of bias toward the state on the part of those justices.
“When I was a journalist I was told a one-source story was not worth much — that’s true for this report, too,” said city Coun. Alex Norris, who is vice-president of the public safety committee and wrote the minority report.
Members of the Coderre administration on the committee wanted to avoid talking about the institutional bias of justices of the peace and judges toward the police, Norris continued, during a heated debate at the last city council meeting of the year.
He referred to a study released earlier this year that found that, over the past nine years, 94 per cent of nominees to be justices of the peace came from jobs in the Quebec civil service, including the Crown prosecutor’s office.
“They just wanted to come to a conclusion that everything was fine, nothing to worry about and we should move on,” Norris said. “This report is a whitewash. It’s an attempt to distract us from the scandal that includes the mayor himself.”
In November, Mayor Denis Coderre admitted he had called the chief of police in 2014 about Lagacé, after the columnist had asked questions about whether Coderre had paid a parking ticket.
The police investigation into Lagacé’s sources was opened shortly afterwards. On Monday, Lagacé decried what he sees as a cosy relationship between the police and judges, as revealed in the high acceptance rate of police warrants.
“Judges should not be in awe of the police,” he said. “It’s very counterproductive and very toxic. I’ve seen what they’ve alleged about my behaviour to justify the surveillance ... the conclusions they ’ve drawn are some kind of fairy tale.”
But he was most critical of the politicians in the Coderre administration, the only politicians in the province to not condemn the police’s use of criminal investigative means to spy on journalists when resources for investigating real criminals are scarce.
“This administration knows the pressure it puts on every municipal department, including the police, to control and politicize information,” Lagacé said. “So of course they are not going to tell the police they acted wrongly.”
Samson, in responding to criticism from councillors, stood by the report, which she said would be an “interesting” and “relevant” document for those heading the Quebec government’s commission of inquiry on the protection of journalistic sources, launched following the revelations about the surveillance of journalists by the Montreal police and the Sûreté du Québec.
The commission will be headed by Quebec Court of Appeal judge Jacques Chamberland.