Dismissing seven police officers will not change the police

I wore the RCMP uniform for nearly thirty years, in Quebec and in Ontario. I was a recruiter for Quebec in the early 2000s, then a staff sergeant. Throughout all those years, I was also a Black man in an institution that had not been designed for me.

I know police culture from the inside. I know its loyalty, its courage, its brotherhood. I also know its flip side: the silence, the jokes that are allowed to slide, the colleague who gets covered for, and the racialized citizen who is seen first as a suspect.

I have been a victim of racial profiling. So have my sons. And I must admit it: as a police officer, I did it myself. Since then, I have supported and defended victims, and in their stories I recognized actions I had taken while believing I was simply doing my job.

So I have known profiling from every angle. That is what allows me to say this: it is not the work of a few racist officers. It is a reflex that is learned, passed on and tolerated. It can be practised without hatred. It can be practised even by someone who is Black.

The right move, the wrong shortcut

On Monday, Director Fady Dagher dismissed seven SPVM officers following allegations of racist and discriminatory acts at Neighbourhood Station 39, in Montréal-Nord. According to these allegations, officers allegedly cut locks of hair from racialized citizens and kept them as trophies.

Rather than going through the disciplinary committee, he withdrew their accreditation under section 115 of the Police Act, on the grounds that they no longer had the « good moral character » required of a police officer. He stands by it: « an exceptional measure for exceptional events. »

I understand this decision. For the families of Montréal-Nord, seeing these officers still in uniform would have been unbearable. But as a lawyer, I am worried about the path chosen.

Administrative law rests on a simple rule: you hear a person before you sanction them. The Police Brotherhood is already challenging a process it considers contrary to natural justice. The director himself acknowledges that the disciplinary route « could indeed have been the path. » His remarks about wanting to « avenge these citizens, » for which he apologized, are now handing ammunition to the defence. Some officers have even reported him to the police ethics commissioner.

The risk is real. If a tribunal overturns these dismissals on procedural grounds, the seven officers will come out of it as victims of a boss in a hurry. The real victims, meanwhile, will never have seen their case judged on the merits. An expedited, public disciplinary process, with immediate suspension, would have taken a few months longer, but would have been far more solid.

The missing: those who knew

The most troubling part is not the procedure. It is what the procedure leaves out. Seven officers are gone. What about their sergeants, their lieutenants, their commanders?

Asked about this by La Presse, the director replied that the DPCP found « no blame at the criminal level » against the managers. He added that in a paramilitary organization, « we think everyone is aware, but that is not necessarily the case. » The disciplinary review, for its part, is still under way.

I was a staff sergeant. I know what a supervisor sees and what he chooses not to see. Hair trophies are not hidden for months in a police station without someone knowing. And people did know: in June 2015, a Montréal-Nord youth organization reported to Station 39 in writing intimidation, excessive force and arrests without cause, with photos to back it up. In May 2016, young Black people from the neighbourhood denounced it publicly.

The absence of criminal charges does not answer the real question: who had the duty to act, and did not? The courts have already recognized, notably in the Luamba case (2022), that racial profiling is a reality in Quebec. Such a reality survives only if the chain of command tolerates it.

Changing the face and the mission

When I was recruiting for the RCMP in Quebec, I saw how many talented racialized young people turned away from the SPVM, hoping the RCMP would be « less racist. » That was more than twenty years ago. I still hear the same thing from the new generation. Those who joined the SPVM had to choose between keeping quiet and isolating themselves.

A representative police force is not a question of image. It is a question of legitimacy. A service that looks like the population it serves better understands its neighbourhoods, its languages and its fears. But diversity in hiring is not enough if the culture crushes those who arrive, or if promotion remains closed to them.

The mission must also be reviewed. Section 48 of the Police Act gives police forces the mandate to « prevent and repress crime. » The word is not trivial. A police force trained first to repress ends up seeing certain neighbourhoods as territory to control rather than a population to protect.

This week’s dismissals sanction individuals. They touch neither this mission nor the culture it has produced.

What must be done

I propose five concrete measures.

1. A public and expedited disciplinary process for the seven officers, if the administrative route is overturned, so that the facts are judged on the merits.
2. An independent disciplinary review of the chain of command at Station 39, entrusted to an external body rather than to the SPVM’s Professional Standards Division.
3. An independent public commission of inquiry, chaired by a judge, under the Act respecting public inquiry commissions. Only such a commission can compel former directors and commanders to state under oath what they knew.
4. A duty to intervene written into law: any officer who reports a colleague must be protected against reprisals; the one who stays silent, or the supervisor who looks the other way, must be held accountable.
5. Amend section 48 of the Police Act to put the protection of people and respect for rights first, rather than repression.

Dismissing seven police officers sends a message. But if the procedure collapses, that message will collapse with it. And removing a few individuals erases neither the culture that shaped them nor the chain of command that tolerated them.

I served for nearly thirty years. I believe in good policing. That is precisely why I am calling for it to change. The day a young person in Montréal-Nord sees a patrol car and feels protected rather than targeted, we will finally have a police force that serves and protects.