A human rights organization is calling for an independent inquiry into Montreal police (SPVM) after emails show what appears to be the force interfering with an independent report looking into the practice of street checks.
The independent study was commissioned by the SPVM.
A group of several researchers from different Quebec universities published the study in 2023 and found that racialized people are disproportionately targeted by the practice and that a moratorium should be imposed.
But the most shocking part of the study wasn’t the findings — it is what high-ranking officials within the force appeared to do to change that conclusion.
“Oh, we were very surprised. First, it was a sign of a very conflictual partnership,” said Massimiliano Malone, a professor at Université de Montréal’s department of criminology and one of the researchers conducting the study.
Malone believes the SPVM tried to interfere with the research he and his colleagues were asked to do.
They were tasked to look into racial profiling and the practice of street checks, also known as random police stops.
Emails show a high-ranking official asked researchers for transcripts of the interviews they conducted with police officers.
The problem is that officers were promised anonymity and confidentiality by their employer, as referenced in an email sent to staff by police and shared with Global News.
By giving them the transcripts, Malone says, some of those officers who spoke out could end up being identified, undermining the researchers’ work.
“It’s a huge sign of saying, ‘OK, we have hired you, but we don’t trust you, and we don’t agree with the way you’re doing your work,'” Malone said.
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He says it’s something he says he never experienced in the 20 years he has worked with the SPVM doing research.
Emails show that researchers refused to share the transcripts.
The report was published in June 2023 and concluded that a moratorium on street checks should be applied.
As newly appointed Montreal police Chief Fady Dhager called a press conference to explain the results, he said he wouldn’t impose the moratorium because he saw it as a “symbolic gesture.”
“I know I’m going to create some disappointment,” the police chief said at the time. “But I don’t want to announce a symbolic measure. I want to solve the deep problem at the roots.”
Instead, he said he would apply “other recommendations” that were issued.
A year later during the city’s latest public security commission in June 2024, the Ligue des droits et libertés called Dhager out on it.
“We are denouncing the attempt to make (people) believe that there are multiple recommendations,” Lynda Khelil, a member of the Ligue, said when addressing the commission.
Khelil reiterated that there were no other recommendations issued except for the moratorium, as can be read in an open letter written by Malone and Victor Armony, another researcher, published in La Presse. The letter explained why the moratorium was their only choice.
Furthermore, Khelil refers to email exchanges they obtained between researchers and police, and seen by Global News, where one high-ranking officer told the researchers “it was too early to consider a moratorium.”
“What we can understand from that is that the SPVM does not really want to act on racial profiling,” Khelil said.
The Ligue wants the City of Montreal to do an inquiry looking at the SPVM’s potential meddling in what was supposed to be an independent report.
City hall opposition agrees.
Ensemble Montreal has introduced a motion at city hall asking the administration to hold a public presentation of the report.
The opposition’s public security critic, Abdelhaq Sari, says the presentation should’ve been done long ago and he doesn’t understand why it keeps being pushed.
“This research was supposed to re-establish trust with citizens of Montreal,” Sari said. “To do that, police needed at least to let researchers do their job.”
The City of Montreal didn’t respond to Global News’ request for comment.
As for Montreal police, they told Global News they can’t comment because the matter of racial profiling and street checks is before the courts.