Raeburn case headed back to courts

Montreal is due for a summons by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal after not meeting an August deadline by the Quebec Human Rights Commission to award a Dollard des Ormeaux resident and two of her friends awards of $20,000 each in punitive damages for what the commission ruled were racial slurs against the three.

"The city is awaiting to be convened by the Human Rights Tribunal," confirmed spokesperson Darren Becker. "I can't talk about why the city is contesting the decision," he said, but lawyers will present their arguments in court in the coming weeks.

On November 11, 2004, Dollard resident Gemma Raeburn, who is black, and two male black friends were cleaning up her garage by moving large boxes to the cabana in her backyard, she said, when police arrived to investigate a neighbour's complaint that a robbery was occurring.

According to Raeburn, who was in the kitchen making a telephone call when police arrived, she heard her friend Peter Charles scream her name from her garage. She arrived there to come face to face with four armed police officers.

A gun was pointed at her and she had to take the officer with her to the kitchen in order to show him identification that proved she lived there and was not a burglar.

When police put their weapons down and Raeeburn questioned their behaviour, one officer, Roger Carbonneau, apparently told her "bullets don't see colour."

A few minutes later, Raeburn saw two other police officers with her other friend Frederic Peters in her backyard. Raeburn said Peters told her one of the officers there had made a racial slur as well when he protested to them that he was an officer in his home country of Grenada and had never treated anyone so shabbily. "If you don't like it here, why are you here? Why don't you go back to your country?" Officer Isabelle Nault allegedly told him.

With the help of the Centre for Research and Race Relations (CRARR), a minority advocacy group, the three friends filed discrimination charges against police with the Quebec Human Rights Commission.

The commission awarded them damages earlier this year, but with Montreal's refusal to meet the deadline, CRARR executive director Fo Niemi told The Chronicle a legal battle can be expected before the tribunal.

"It's a pattern," Niemi said, adding there are five cases besides Raeburn's where the city did not follow the recommendations of the Quebec Human Rights Commission.

Niemi also said these decisions of the city to reject the commission's recommendations are not only bad in terms of fostering racial harmony, but also cost taxpayers money.

"The court always charges retro-active interest," he said, with a two per cent rate. In other words, for as long as the city refuses to pay the damages, the costs will keep piling up.

It remains unclear exactly when the tribunal will convene those involved in the case, but Becker estimated Montreal to get called within the upcoming weeks.