By Joel Ceausu
The Suburban

Racism is a “cancer eating away” at the Montreal police force, a retiring SPVM veteran said in a resignation letter last week.

Veteran Montreal cop and Eclipse anti-gang squad commander Patrice Vilcéus slammed an enduring culture of racism within the ranks, and the stubborn obstacles to ridding the force of it.

That Haitian-born officer served for more than 30 years and has been vocal on issues of racism and discrimination within the SPVM ranks, which he said is made worse by some “managers who defend the status quo with sterile visions,” cautioning against the damage that can be wrought on an organization by ranking leaders who trivialize critical thinking.

He did, however, laud SPVM Chief Fady Dagher for his “vision,” and encouraged him to achieve “positive change.” In July 2023, Dagher rejected calls from a landmark report commissioned by his own force, that called for an immediate ban on random police stops — which were indicative and supported systemic racism — and which noted that blacks were far more likely than whites to be stopped by police in Montreal. Dagher repeatedly insisted he plans to overhaul the culture of the force, denying there are racists within the ranks off officers.

Vilcéus also referred to the recent Quebec Court decision where Judge Dominique Poulin ruled that racialized Montrealers subject to unjustified interventions should be compensated, some tens of thousands of people arrested over a two-year period between 2017 and 2019, as part of a $170 million class action suit brought by the Black Coalition of Quebec.

The SPVM’s own consultant Frédéric Boisrond, who submitted a report on the issue to the force in 2022, told reporters that Vilcéus’ missive is in line with his own observations. The SPVM has not made any public statement in response to the letter. n