25% of new executives in the City of Montreal come from diverse backgrounds

Photo: Marie-France Coallier Le Devoir On Tuesday, October 29, at City Hall, municipal officials reported on the progress of the 2023-2025 commitments aimed at combating racism and discrimination in the metropolis.

Marco Fortier

Published yesterday at 12:40 PM Updated yesterday at 6:24 PM

• Montréal

A quarter of the executives in the City of Montreal who were hired or promoted in the last year are from diverse backgrounds. This proportion has jumped over the past four years, from 15.2% to 25.5%. A “culture change” is taking place to overcome systemic racism and discrimination in the city, says Mayor Valérie Plante’s team.

No fewer than 146 hirings or promotions of managers from diverse backgrounds have been recorded since the beginning of 2023 in the central city and in Montreal’s boroughs. The City plans to deploy more recruitment efforts in the Police Department (SPVM) and the Fire Safety Department (SIM), indicates the report on the progress of the 2023-2025 commitments aimed at combating racism and discrimination in the metropolis.

“A culture change is happening. We are aware that it will not happen overnight,” says Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, responsible for human resources, the fight against racism and systemic discrimination and delegate for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples on the city’s executive committee.

The city’s plan includes 70 commitments aimed at preventing racism and discrimination against citizens and the 28,000 municipal employees. The strategy also targets the fight against racial profiling by the SPVM. The city says 94% of the commitments have been completed or are in the process of being completed.

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Discriminatory rules

Jérémie Lamarche, a community organizer at the Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM), deplores the fact that Montreal is slow to change a series of municipal regulations that give rise to “social profiling” against marginalized people.

He mentions the regulations prohibiting being in a park between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., lying down on a public bench — a “misuse of street furniture” — or the one prohibiting the consumption of alcohol in public, when it is permitted for people who can afford a $12 beer on a terrace, he illustrates.

The City indicates that it has identified 13 municipal regulations likely to lead to racial or social profiling, and has begun the process of modifying them. An analysis of 60,000 fines issued between 2011 and 2018 was also conducted to identify possible systemic flaws leading to profiling.

Arrests

RAPSIM, the Ligue des droits et libertés and other groups deplore the refusal of SPVM director Fady Dagher to declare a moratorium on police stops — a vector of racial profiling described by researcher Victor Armony and his colleagues in their second report commissioned by the police force.

The SPVM is continuing to review its policy on stops, which it began in the spring of 2024. The discussion will continue in the winter of 2025, according to the 2023-2025 report on the progress of the fight against discrimination and racism in Montreal.

The SPVM’s team of “coaches” for arrests has also been expanded in recent months, and now includes four officers and a sergeant. This unit “trains staff, analyzes routine control reports written by police officers to validate their quality, and supports managers in detecting police behavior that could lead to racial and social profiling.” Meetings with “external partners and citizen groups,” aimed at “demystifying and [to] better publicize police work,” are also part of the coaches’ mission.

The SPVM has also implemented a series of initiatives aimed at recruiting agents and officers from diverse backgrounds, and training them to avoid profiling.

Furthermore, criticized for its laxity in handling complaints from employees claiming to have experienced racism, the City created a Complaint Support Center (CAPP) in December 2023. This new one-stop shop handled 196 cases in ten months, 87% of which received a response within 24 hours. The Montreal Public Service Commission, an entity independent of political power, was tasked with conducting the investigations.

A previous version of this text indicated that 25% of executives at the City of Montreal are from diverse backgrounds. The City has since corrected its information, telling Le Devoir that it was rather 25% of new executives in its administration who are from diverse backgrounds.