Each Monday I will provide a potpourri of Quebec (and Canadian) legal developments. Issue 03 takes a brief look at a Quebec Appeal Court ruling that will delight discount brokers while irk consumers, Quebec’s latest effort to impose a nationalist culture, and decision that examines the notion of social profiling.
Quebec Charter
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Strip search not discriminatory, rules Quebec Appeal Court
A Quebec Human Rights Tribunal that found that a prisoner had been discriminated against during a strip search because he had been viewed by a correctional services officer of the opposite sex was overturned by the Quebec Court of Appeal after it concluded that there was no evidence that the prisoner’s sex played any role in the differential treatment to which he was subjected.
The Tribunal found that the plaintiff suffered discriminatory treatment with respect to the rights enshrined in ss. 4 (but not 5), 24.1, 25 and 26 of the Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. It ordered the appellants solidarily to pay the plaintiff $6,000 for moral damages, and ordered a prison guard to pay $1,000 in punitive damages.
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Far-reaching decision addresses racial profiling in prisons
The Quebec Human Rights Tribunal ordered the Attorney General of Quebec and eight prison employees to pay a young black man $41,500 in moral and punitive damages in a decision deemed to be a major step forward in the recognition of racial profiling and the duty to accommodate in prisons, according to legal observers.
The ruling, the first to deal with racial profiling in a Quebec detention center, also issued public interest orders under Article 80 of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, compelling the provincial Ministry of Public Safety to develop and implement a strategic plan for discriminatory profiling and disseminate the plan to all correctional officers.
“Given the documented overrepresentation of black people in prisons, it is disturbing that prison staff are not more aware of the phenomenon of racial profiling and the prejudices and stereotypes that affect those who are subject to it,” said the Tribunal in Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (Toussaint) c. Procureur général du Québec (Ministère de la Sécurité publique), 2023 QCTDP 21.