Pierre Emmanuel Joseph, in West Palm Beach, on Mar. 7, was approached by Quebec police in October 2021 after cooling down after a jog and handcuffed because he couldn't produce ID.Saul Martinez/The Globe and Mail
Arab and Black people are overrepresented in police stops in Laval, Quebec’s third-largest city, adding to mounting evidence of widespread racial profiling by law enforcement in the province, according to data obtained by The Globe and Mail.
The data, which Laval police fought in court to avoid disclosing after receiving an access-to-information request, include nearly 10,000 police stops made between December, 2022, and January, 2025. Each entry lists the date and hour of a stop, along with the individual’s race.
People of Arab or West Asian descent, which can include Iranians and Afghans, for example, were subjected to more than a third (34.4 per cent) of the police stops – even though they represented only 12.7 per cent of Laval’s population, according to the 2021 Statistics Canada census.
Black people were subjected to nearly one in five police stops (19.7 per cent), more than double their share of the population (8.9 per cent) in 2021.
Since late 2022, police forces in Quebec have started collecting race-based data on the people they stop but have been reluctant to publish the results. The Globe has been reporting on a pattern of overpoliced minorities that emerged wherever data were made public through often-contested access-to-information requests, including in major cities such as Longueuil and Quebec City.
Laval police said the discrepancies were not a sign of improper policing but did not offer an alternative explanation.
When reached by phone, Laval Police Chief Pierre Brochet declined to answer any questions about the data. Instead, he referred to an unsigned statement sent in response to written questions.
The Laval Police Service “is confident that its police officers act professionally and on reasonable grounds when making stops,” the statement said.
It said the data include not only street checks, which involve police officers asking individuals for their IDs or other information without detaining or arresting them, but some observations and traffic violations as well.
The data also include arbitrary traffic stops – done without an infraction – conducted under a provision that was invalidated by the Quebec Superior Court in a landmark 2022 racial profiling case. The Court of Appeal confirmed the ruling, but the province said in December that it would seek another appeal at the Supreme Court.
Chief Brochet, who is also president of a Quebec police chiefs association, is a staunch defender of arbitrary traffic stops, arguing they can save lives. In its October judgment, the Court of Appeal said the province did not present “any evidence to support the conclusion that discretionary traffic stops are an effective means of ensuring road safety.”
Laval police noted that the Equinoxe squad, which focuses on criminal groups and regularly visits Laval bars, reported “a significant portion” of the stops. Its officers could also have stopped the same person more than once, police said.
The statement did not explain how this was related to the overpolicing of minorities.
An expert report cited in a 2024 decision from Quebec’s Human Rights Tribunal that blamed Laval police for racial profiling warned against stereotypes associating Black men with organized crime. “Study after study shows that the higher rates of stops of black men – compared to white men – cannot be attributed to the groups’ behaviours and crime rates,” the report said.
Laval police also said that some stops result from interactions with people from outside the city. This, however, is unlikely to explain the overrepresentation of Black and Arab people as they represented a similar or smaller proportion of residents in Montreal and surrounding areas.
In a 2021 report, a city committee found that 87 per cent of Laval respondents of African descent thought the police engage in racial profiling, with nearly half saying they had been victims of the practice.
In October, 2021, Pierre Emmanuel Joseph was cooling down after a run in his Laval neighbourhood when police stopped him. They told Mr. Joseph, who is Black, that it was illegal to be on the street and that he had to use the sidewalk.
Mr. Joseph was surprised, he said, because it is common for runners to use the roadway and, even as police stopped him, a white woman was walking off the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.
The officers asked for his ID, but Mr. Joseph did not carry it during his runs. “That’s where it went sour,” he said. They put him in handcuffs and drove him home, a few steps away on the same street.
Pierre Emmanuel Joseph, an aerospace engineer with the Canadian Armed Forces at the time, said the police accused him of lying about his credentials.Saul Martinez/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Joseph, an aerospace engineer with the Canadian Armed Forces at the time, said the police accused him of lying about his credentials. But when an officer found his military ID, “he looked at it, and there was total silence,” Mr. Joseph said. “They took off the handcuffs, left me home and went to their vehicle.”
They returned with a ticket for walking on the street and later filed a criminal charge for obstruction. The charge was dropped after Mr. Joseph agreed to make a nominal donation to a non-profit organization, he said.
He filed a complaint with Quebec’s human rights commission. “It’s not about money, it’s about my dignity,” Mr. Joseph, who has since relocated to Florida, said in an interview. Laval police declined to comment on the case because it is still under review.
The commission recommended in 2011 that police departments collect and publish race-based data on their interactions with the public but, in a 2020 report, noted that none had done so.
In January, 2023, the province’s Ministry of Public Security said 12 municipal forces had implemented the collection of race-based data. A Globe reporter sent access-to-information requests to each one, but most initially declined or did not respond, forcing appeals to the Access to Information Commission.
Data have since been trickling in, showing a consistent pattern of overpoliced minorities.
In Quebec City, Black, Arab and Latin-American people were overrepresented in police stops. Black and Arab people were also overrepresented in Longueuil, a Montreal suburb.
In reports published in 2019 and 2023, researchers found that Black, Arab and Indigenous people were overrepresented in Montreal police stops. They also found that criminality could not explain how much more these groups were subjected to police stops.
Laval police initially said they did not have the data, which was false. In January, an administrative judge ordered the force to disclose them.
Ministry of Public Security spokesperson Marjolaine Gagnon said all Quebec forces have been required to collect race-based data on police stops since April, 2024.
A reporter also asked the ministry for provincewide data on police stops. The ministry said in May, 2023, that it did not have that data, contradicting itself and police departments.
That decision was also appealed. The ministry is fighting it on technical grounds and a hearing is scheduled in April.