Mayor Ferrada of Montréal confuses me greatly
Do not criticize the police...which she says discriminate against her husband.
Today, Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada of Montréal—formerly the Liberal MP for Hochelaga and briefly a Trudeau cabinet minister—stated in an interview on Radio-Canada’s Tout un matin that her own husband, who is black, has been randomly stopped by the SPVM without explanation “at least five or six times”, and that this is clearly an example of systemic racism perpetuated by the police.
In the wake of a massive racism scandal rocking the SPVM, implicating sixteen different officers, and in the face of the stubborn insistence by CAQ Premier Christine Fréchette that the sick practice of cutting off the hair of black people and collecting the braids as trophies was “not systemic racism”, it’s very important for Mayor Ferrada to, in her own words from today’s interview, “[call] things what they are”. I fully agree with her interpretation, and I am disgusted by the excuses pink-skin politicians make for the SPVM as they violate black people.
On a different note, ten days ago, the same Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada of Montréal said she would support a new municipal by-law to make it illegal to criticize or “insult” the police. Her justification for this brazed violation of the Charter right to freedom of expression is a push-poll paid for by the SPVM officer’s labour union, and she has also explicitly said that those ticketed under the by-law must not have the right to “be able to contest it in court”, violating the Charter right to due process.
Now, pardon my confusion for a moment, but, uh, what?
Mayor Ferrada thinks that the SPVM are perpetuating systemic racism, and says that we need to call it out. Mayor Ferrada also thinks that it should be illegal to criticize the SPVM, and illegal to challenge such tickets in our courts. The line between criticism and “insult”, as she phrases it, is fully in the eye of the beholder, and surely, an SPVM officer could feel very insulted that Mayor Ferrada has accused them of being a racist!
Does the Mayor of Montréal understand that the by-law she seeks will hurt people like her own husband? Clearly she understands that her privilege as Mayor hasn’t protected him from the racism of the SPVM, yet she wants to give them the power to arrest black people for “calling things what they are”? Does she think she would be invulnerable to the Leviathan she would impose upon her city, that the by-law of her creation would not undo her?
There really isn’t much else to say for this column. Further paragraphs would mostly consist of repeating the above with different phrasing, so I will spare my readers. All I can say is that Mayor Ferrada’s 180-degree turn confuses me greatly, and I would greatly appreciate if she could clarify whether she thinks the SPVM are systemically racist, or whether they should be literally illegal to critique.
But she simply cannot espouse both views at once. This is farcical, and she owes Montréal clarity.