What the racism crisis within the Montreal police reveals cannot be reduced to a few officers who overstepped their authority. The dismantling of an entire 16-officer team at neighbourhood station 39 in Montréal-Nord following allegations of racism and hateful conduct raises a much deeper question: what structures allow such practices to develop within an institution that is supposed to protect everyone?
Following the revelations, community organizations and advocates demanded concrete action, while calls for an independent public inquiry have grown. But the issue goes far beyond restoring “trust.” What is needed is genuine accountability and a transformation of practices that expose Black people, immigrants, refugees and other marginalized communities to discrimination, surveillance and suspicion.
This is nothing new in Montréal-Nord. The neighbourhood still carries the memory of Fredy Villanueva, an 18-year-old killed by police gunfire in 2008, and the long struggles against racial profiling and social and economic marginalization that followed. Today, the same questions are returning with an urgency that cannot be ignored.
Residents and community organizations are demanding concrete measures, including an end to arbitrary police street checks. Communities subjected to racism cannot be told to wait years more for institutions to change.
For immigrants, refugees and workers with precarious status, fear of police can intersect with insecure immigration status, poverty, linguistic isolation, and discrimination in employment and housing. Fighting police racism is therefore inseparable from the struggle for migrant and workers’ rights.
“Awareness” training and public-relations statements are not enough. What is needed is an independent and transparent investigation, genuine accountability, an end to racial profiling and discriminatory police stops, and real power for affected communities to hold policing practices to account.
Real safety cannot be built on fear. There can be no justice as long as skin colour, origin or immigration status can turn a person into a suspect.
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