He hasn’t been formally sworn in but already the Montreal police department’s new Chief, Sylvain Caron, presented a ten point action plan to prevent racial and social profiling in the city over the next three years.
Caron led a team of four senior SPVM officials before Montreal’s public security commission.
Caron and others took a lot of questions from councillors and members of the public concerning racial profiling.
Some wanted to know concrete actions officers have already taken to prevent racial profiling. Others asked to know how the department plans to measure the problem of racial profiling and pointing out it’s a breach of the Canadian constitution.
The SPVM direction said there are consequences if actions aren’t put into place which is why the action plan was written up.
“We don’t pretend the plan is perfect and this is why there will be follow-ups, in order to make sure that adjustments need to be made,” said André Durocher, the force’s communications director.
Watch below: a new report suggests the Montreal police service still has a lot of work ahead to curb racial profiling within its departments
Some of the action plan’s ten points include:
-Favour diversity in human resources value and promote work of officers who show appropriate responses to diversity
-Consolidate confidence with residents
-Better communication between police and people
While the SPVM was making a case to end racial profiling, the Black Coalition of Quebec has submitted a $4 million class action lawsuit against the police department.
“Too many members of our community are being harrassed by police officers,” Gabriel Bazin from the Black Coalition of Quebec told Global News.
“They have no respect for them, no respect for their dignity, nothing at all.”
The coalition’s lawyer says there are 500 claimants named in the suit, each seeking approximately $8,000 in damages as victims of racial profiling.