"Smokescreen; a dog and pony show"

By Joel Ceausu The Suburban

Carl Moïse felt his wheel shudder as he drove his child to a soccer game. Then it began to wobble on the highway and almost fell off his car. The lug nuts had been loosened.
The Montreal civil servant, who was subject to racist taunts, insults, threats and intimidation over much of his 14-year career with the city’s transport and environment departments, feared the worst. As section manager, Moïse was told by a superior early in his career “You have to adapt to the city’s organizational culture if you want to keep working here.”
Even after the incident, management did nothing – except reimburse his repair costs. “I was so anxious, I didn’t know how to explain to my wife” he said. “I didn’t want her to live in fear as well… I’m not a person to make trouble. I’m a proud man who walks with his head high. I just wanted to do my job.” Things improved only after taking it into his own hands, in what he calls a very intense confrontation with one instigator in a municipal office bathroom. “He looked in my eyes and saw I was at my limit,” he said. “That's when things calmed down. But I think: ‘what if that didn't end well?”
Moïse’s case is one of many emerging following a devastating Le Devoir investigative report into racism in the civil service. That lack of support, empathy or solidarity with victims is endemic says Red Coalition director Joel DeBellefeuille and “what feeds systemic racism.”
Next week, Montreal’s Bureau of the Commissioner to Fight Racism and Systemic Discrimination (BRDS) tables its second annual progress report. Former member Alain Babineau, a director of the Black Class Action Secretariat, has a message for Montrealers expecting big progress: “Curb your enthusiasm.”
The report, like city activities and declarations during Black History Month he says, is just “a smoke screen, a dog and pony show.” The retired RCMP officer said he was “muzzled” and “sidelined from the process,” while hired to tackle racial profiling by police. It took almost five months to get a meeting with the SPVM, and said he received no support from the Bureau or administration. In fact, after the Plante administration promised action, “something happened, during the elections. I don't know what, but we went from ‘actions’ to ‘commitments.”

Dismissed during his probationary period after a year, he told a press conference in Côte des Neiges on Tuesday “they did me a favor. I was quitting… They have no interest in fighting racism and discrimination. The commission had three employees, but Diversity and Inclusion has almost 100. You can't have diversity and inclusion when you still have racism and discrimination, it tells you how serious the city of Montreal is.”
And it doesn’t stop at municipal. Kethlande Pierre is a deputy director in the federal government and part of the Black Class Action Secretariat. Early in her career she took a complaint to a superior who asked: “Are you sure you want to make this complaint?” implying it would damage her career. She says governments don’t do enough and “it's groups like the BCA and Red Coalition who are reaching out to help, and that's why I support them, publicly.” She said black employees need allies. “And that includes white people. Just like women in the workplace need men as allies” to fight the scourge of sexual harassment.
The BCA and Red Coalition want official apologies from Projet Montréal and Ensemble Montréal to black employees “past and present” for racism and discrimination endured during successive administrations, and an independent body to receive and investigate complaints. “We don't need any more research or analysis” scoffs Babineau. “We have enough. It's a waste of taxpayers’ money. We need to act.”
The RC filed an ethics complaint with Quebec’s Commission municipale against executive committee president responsible for the fight against racism Dominique Ollivier, who DeBellefeuille says “gaslighted” the city's own anti-racism advisor. That stems from a Saint-Leonard managerial workshop where BRDS advisor Nathalie Carrénard felt targeted by participants who she says used the opportunity to vent on her, a black woman, allegedly making derogatory comments about black and Muslim employees. Ollivier's reported response says the RC, suggested Carrénard could have done better.