Quebec police ethics tribunal orders 25- and 20-day suspensions for racial profiling

Quebec’s Tribunal administratif de déontologie policière imposed unpaid suspensions totalling 25 working days on Simon Deveault-Bonenfant and 20 on François Bleau-Goulet for racially discriminatory conduct during a traffic stop. Administrative judge Isabelle Côté’s Oct. 9, 2026 sanctions decision also requires both Sûreté du Québec officers to successfully complete a 19-hour course at the École nationale de police du Québec.

Each suspension day is eight hours. Deveault-Bonenfant also received five days for an abusive backpack search and five for disrespectful conduct, but those sanctions run concurrently with his 25-day suspension. His total is therefore 25 days, not 35.

The orders in files C-2023-5437-1 and C-2023-5438-1 follow Côté’s June 5 merits decision, 2026 QCTADP 29. Deveault-Bonenfant was a sergeant supervising Bleau-Goulet, then an agent, when they stopped a Black motorist in Mascouche on Dec. 4, 2020. Bleau-Goulet had become a sergeant by the sanctions decision.

A traffic stop that became an abusive search

The officers said they were checking a driver’s licence under the Highway Safety Code. The tribunal found that race or skin colour contributed to their treatment of the motorist, contrary to Article 5 of Quebec’s police ethics code. Two recordings made by the motorist captured almost the entire encounter and were important to the tribunal’s assessment.

The merits decision explained that racial profiling can be established through circumstantial evidence: membership in a protected group, differential or unusual treatment affecting a protected right, and a prohibited ground contributing to that treatment. The broader social context alone was not enough. The tribunal had to assess the particular intervention and the officers’ explanations.

Deveault-Bonenfant required the motorist to open a backpack after suggesting it contained drugs. The tribunal rejected the defence that suspected drugs were in plain view. His descriptions were vague and changing, and he lacked reasonable grounds even to suspect drugs were present. Requiring the motorist to open the bag and remove its contents was a search, although the sergeant did not handle it himself.

The tribunal said a traffic stop did not confer a general search power. It found the search illegal and abusive even independently of its conclusion that the stop was discriminatory. It also found that the cumulative effect of Deveault-Bonenfant’s comments, aggressive manner and contemptuous tone breached his obligation to treat the motorist respectfully.

Why the tribunal imposed longer suspensions

At the sanctions stage, the police ethics commissioner sought 30 days for Deveault-Bonenfant and 25 for Bleau-Goulet on the racial-profiling count, plus the training. The commissioner also sought concurrent five-day sanctions for the search and disrespect. The defence proposed 14 days for Deveault-Bonenfant’s profiling misconduct, two days for each of his other breaches, and eight days for Bleau-Goulet.

The defence emphasized the absence of ethics records, the brief search, the lack of additional violence, an apology and training already undertaken. Bleau-Goulet also relied on his lesser role. Côté nevertheless concluded that substantial sanctions were needed to protect the public and deter repetition, rather than to punish the officers.

Under the Police Act, the tribunal considered the gravity and circumstances of the misconduct and the officers’ ethics records. It treated the absence of previous or subsequent ethics cases as neutral. Their experience—about 10 years for Deveault-Bonenfant and eight for Bleau-Goulet—and their specialized policing work counted against them. The sergeant’s supervisory position required him to set an example.

The tribunal also treated inaccuracies in the officers’ report as aggravating: it misstated aspects of the encounter and exaggerated the motorist’s agitation. On the profiling misconduct, it found a lack of remorse raised concerns about recurrence. That finding did not mean no apology had been offered: the reasons separately recognized Deveault-Bonenfant’s acknowledgment and apology concerning his disrespectful comments.

Côté reviewed earlier profiling sanctions ranging from five to 30 days, with many at 14 or 15. She distinguished older, lower sanctions and more violent cases rather than treating that range as a fixed tariff. The seriousness of this intervention justified more than 15 days. Deveault-Bonenfant’s supervisory role and contemptuous attitude supported 25 days; Bleau-Goulet’s different participation warranted 20.

Training and the limits of the orders

The tribunal ordered all four modules of the ENPQ course. It distinguished that facilitated, more structured program from online training Deveault-Bonenfant had completed and Bleau-Goulet had begun. The course provides deeper reflection on police practices and prepares designated officers to help educate colleagues. Côté considered it better suited to protecting the public and reducing the risk of recurrence.

Not every charge led to a sanction. The merits decision conditionally stayed the Article 7 count concerning the backpack search because it duplicated the Article 6 abuse-of-authority count. The five-day search suspension was imposed under Article 6, not the conditionally stayed count.

The tribunal dismissed the two charges concerning seizure of the vehicle and statements about its release conditions after the commissioner acknowledged insufficient evidence. Although the reasons considered the towing in the broader profiling context, those dismissals remain distinct from the misconduct findings. The ethics decisions did not overturn the motorist’s winter-tire conviction, impose a criminal conviction on either officer or award damages. Their operative remedies are disciplinary suspensions and mandatory training.