Important step toward ending police’s culture of secrecy
When Montreal Police Chief Martin Prud’homme testifies at what is to be the first regular open sitting of the city’s public security committee Tuesday, it will signal an important turning point.
It will be a step toward ending the unhealthy culture of secrecy that has plagued the Service de police de la ville de Montréal and its relationship with the city it serves. Unlike the Toronto Police Services Board or the Edmonton Police Commission, which hold monthly hearings on operational matters that citizens are welcome to attend, open sessions of Montreal’s public security committee have been a rarity — usually an attempt to manage a crisis. Projet Montréal promised to put an end to closed-door meetings and city councillor Alex Norris, the new committee chair, has moved quickly to usher in an era of transparency.
This necessary and longoverdue move comes at a crucial moment. A devastating report last fall confirmed the toxic culture and clan warfare that had long been rumoured at the SPVM. The fallout from allegations of corruption, also mentioned in the report, may continue as ongoing criminal probes reach their conclusions. But the SPVM is under new management since Prud’homme parachuted in from the head of the Sûreté du Québec on a one-year mandate to whip the Montreal force into shape.
Tuesday’s public hearing will be an opportunity for Prud’homme to offer a progress report on his plan for restoring public faith in the Montreal police. He filed a two-page update, which includes his mission statement (making the SPVM “a trustworthy organization where we progress together”) and a list of measures taken so far, like meeting with the rank and file and reviewing the troubled internal affairs department, the source of so much conflict.
It will take a lot more than inspirational words to fix what ails the Montreal police. The hearing should also be used as a chance to remind Prud’homme that the SPVM is suffering from a lot more than a problem of low morale. There are deeper issues behind Montrealers’ crisis of confidence in their police department that have been festering for years and urgently need to be addressed.
The scourge of racial profiling has been highlighted again and again by rights groups, individuals and community organizations. Alarming encounters between members of visible minorities and Montreal police officers continue to come to light, from tragic shootings to cases of getting pulled over for driving while black. But efforts to address the problem have consistently failed. Why?
A 2015 report obtained two years later by the Montreal Gazette and a private citizen as a result of an access-to-information request revealed most of the proposed measures were never acted on, lacked funding or were cancelled. These included community-building exercises and a national forum on the hot-button issue. The SPVM also never bothered to track reports of racial profiling, neglecting to form a committee to do so.
Worse, a companion survey by social scientists uncovered worrying attitudes about race and crime among officers that no doubt influence their behaviour on duty. It also found ethics complaints acted as little deterrent. Meanwhile, sensitivity training programs were not held, not taken seriously by participants or sparsely attended.
This certainly explains some of the appalling testimony at the Viens Inquiry, the roving provincial commission documenting discrimination against Indigenous people by Quebec public bodies during its stop in Montreal. Outreach workers who attempt to improve relations between Montreal’s homeless Indigenous population and local police described how officers mocked a training course they had tried to develop to boost understanding, acting with the maturity level of unruly teenagers. They also recounted a meeting where an officer proposed tagging Indigenous people to help keep track of them — as if they were livestock.
Is it a matter of ignorance or outright racism? Such attitudes may be explained in part by the fact only eight per cent of SPVM officers come from different cultural backgrounds and minority groups, compared to about a third of Montreal’s population. Yet recruitment efforts aimed at bringing more diversity to the department have also fallen short.
Perhaps some of these issues would have been resolved, or at least dealt with more effectively, had there been open hearings in the past. There’s nothing like the prospect of a public shaming — which these consistent failures rightfully deserve — to motivate an organization to take action and press city hall to demand accountability.
The cracks created by the longrunning strife at the SPVM are the ideal opportunity to let the light in to an opaque organization that for too long has been resistant to criticism and reluctant to change. A little transparency and scrutiny could go a long way in turning the Montreal force into the trustworthy, progressive and unifying organization the interim chief aspires to build.
Letting the sunshine in is the first step toward the major culture change that is needed.