Quebec will ask the Supreme Court of Canada to allow police officers to conduct random traffic stops after the province’s court of appeal found that the practice led to racial profiling and was unconstitutional.
Traffic stops without prior infractions, variously described as random, arbitrary or discretionary, are conducted under s. 636 of Quebec’s Highway Safety Code. The Quebec Superior Court first invalidated this provision in a landmark 2022 racial-profiling case. The Court of Appeal confirmed the ruling in October and gave Quebec six months before s. 636 would become inoperative.
Quebec Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette told reporters Thursday morning in Quebec City that the government would appeal the decision “because we consider that there are errors of law in the judgment of the Quebec Court of Appeal.” He declined to elaborate on what these errors were.
Mr. Jolin-Barrette said he would also ask the Supreme Court to maintain s. 636 in force during the rest of the judicial process.
The province’s Minister of Public Security, François Bonnardel, told reporters Thursday that these police stops are an important tool for officers as they perform their work. “Thanks to s. 636, we save lives, we improve the road safety record,” he said. Mr. Bonnardel said that random traffic stops could, for example, uncover drunk drivers.
In a 2023 report, an association of Quebec police chiefs found that about 1,000 drunk drivers were arrested the year before as a results of random stops.
However, in its judgment, the Court of Appeal noted that Quebec did not present “any evidence to support the conclusion that discretionary traffic stops are an effective means of ensuring road safety,” especially as other methods, such as roadblocks, can be employed.
By contrast, there is ample evidence that arbitrary stops lead to racial profiling, the court noted. Numerous studies found that Black drivers are over-represented in discretionary police stops, perpetuating and reinforcing discrimination. In a series of stories over the past two years, The Globe and Mail found the same pattern using newly available data from several Quebec cities.
The challenge against s. 636 was initially filed by Joseph-Christopher Luamba, a Black Montreal resident who had been stopped by police nearly a dozen times without reason. None resulted in a ticket.
Lex Gill, a lawyer for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, a respondent in front of the Court of Appeal, described its judgment as “a major victory for equality rights in Canada.”
“Claiming that the power is necessary to promote ‘public safety’ is an insult to racialized drivers, whose actual safety, dignity, and constitutional rights are at stake every time an officer carries out an arbitrary stop,” Ms. Gill said in a text message Thursday.