When Leslie Blot was pulled over in Mascouche on Dec. 4, 2020, he immediately knew something was wrong.
He had just left his mother’s grave and was driving home when two provincial police officers stopped him. Within minutes, one officer was demanding to see inside his backpack, saying he suspected it contained drugs.
“When you have someone in front of you that was supposed to protect you and insults you like that, treats you like a child,” Blot told CityNews in an interview, “you feel like less than nothing.”
Nearly six years later, Tribunal administratif de déontologie policière confirmed what Blot said he realized “from the beginning,” finding that Sgt. Simon Deveault-Bonenfant and officer François Bleau-Goulet of the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) discriminated him based on the colour of his skin.
“Virtually all circumstances surrounding the stop pointed to racial profiling,” Justice Isabelle Côté wrote in the decision, rendered on June 5.
Blot, who said he’s experienced discriminatory encounters with police since “the age of 16,” began recording the interaction on his phone because he was concerned for his safety.
The recording ultimately became crucial evidence in the decision.
In the video, the officers told Blot they wanted to verify his licence. Later, their explanations included concerns that his vehicle could be stolen, that he had a criminal record and that there were “lots of bags” in his car and that “some of them look white.”
Inside, according to the decision, were a candle, incense and holy water in a container shaped like the Virgin Mary. Blot had brought the items from the cemetery.
Blot was called a “drama queen” as he searched for his licence and realized that he left it in another jacket. The officers are also heard mocking him as the “national victim of the century” after the Mascouche resident accused them of racial profiling. Blot was then fined for not having winter tires on his car before the officers order it to be towed.
The tribunal found the search was illegal and abusive.
The decision also found that the explanations as to why the SQ officers pulled him over could not reasonably account for the intervention.
Instead, it concluded that Blot’s race and the fact that he was driving a luxury vehicle were factors in how he was treated.
“Practically the entirety” of the circumstances surrounding the intervention revealed indicators of racial profiling, the judge concluded, calling it a “manifest” case of discrimination based on race or skin colour.
Blot says he has experienced racial profiling since he was a teenager and that the incident six years ago is but a sample of a larger problem within the province.
He points to other high-profile cases involving alleged racial profiling and police conduct in Quebec, including controversies involving the SPVM’s Station 39 and the death of Noorani Rezayi.
“What happened in Montreal-Nord? That’s disgusting,” Blot said, referring to 16 officers currently under investigation for racial profiling for actions including allegedly cutting and collecting dreadlocks as “trophies” during street checks.
“That makes you think about what else can they do that we don’t know yet.”
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The 2020 traffic stop wasn’t the first time Blot says he’s been discriminated against based on the colour of his skin.
In 2017, he was handcuffed and ticketed after sitting in the passenger seat of a parked car blowing up balloons for his children in Repentigny. It’s a case that the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission decided was an instance of racial profiling.
The June 5 ruling was Blot’s second legal victory over the 2020 incident. A separate case before Quebec’s human rights tribunal two years earlier resulted in a confidential financial settlement.
“I don’t trust the police,” Blot said, adding that the province has a “big problem in the system.”
But he says his experiences with police outside Quebec have been very different.
“That never happens. Not even a look,” Blot said, referring to experiences in other Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver.
Fo Niemi, executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), helped Blot with both of his complaints.
He said the tribunal’s findings are particularly significant because one of the officers, Deveault-Bonenfant, was a sergeant and the other officer’s superior.
“It’s important to stress that one of the officers is a sergeant,” Niemi said. “With the supervisory and the superior authority, this person hopefully will, shall we say, will learn a very tough lesson with regard to his duties.”
Niemi also points to the timing of an official report written about the incident.
The tribunal found that Deveault-Bonenfant wrote a report on April 13, 2021 — four months after the traffic stop and after he had received Blot’s complaint and viewed the videos.
The judge described it as “troubling” that the officers had not considered it important to prepare the report on the day of an intervention involving a contentious interaction and a search for suspected drugs.
Niemi says the findings should prompt the SQ to review how officers conduct traffic stops and how they document those interactions.
He also sees the decision as part of a broader shift toward tougher scrutiny of racial discrimination by Quebec police officers.
The June ruling does not end the disciplinary process.
The tribunal found Sgt. Deveault-Bonenfant responsible for illegally and abusively searching Blot’s backpack and for lacking sufficient cause for the stop. Both Deveault-Bonenfant and Bleau-Goulet were found responsible for racially motivated discriminatory behaviour.
The next stage will determine the sanctions against the officers, with a decision expected in September or October, according to Niemi.
The SQ did not provide comment to CityNews about the tribunal’s findings.
For Blot, the decision on sanctions against the officers will determine whether he feels the system has actually followed through.
“They have to face real consequences so they know that if they do that again, something’s going to happen,” he said.
And after nearly six years of fighting the case, he said he wants other people who experience similar treatment not to stay silent.
“I don’t take this decision for myself only. I take it for my kids, I take it for your kids,” he said, “and I take it to make a better world.”
