Baby Shark to scare away the homeless | “It’s not human,” says Lionel Carmant

(Quebec) The Minister responsible for Social Services, Lionel Carmant, denounces the use of the song Baby Shark by the Complexe Desjardins in Montreal to scare away the homeless.

“It’s not human and it’s not the right way (to do things),” he said in a press scrum at the National Assembly on Friday.

“I am here to take care of the homeless,” added the minister.

But Lionel Carmant did not have a specific request to make to Complexe Desjardins. “The community needs to come together to take care of people,” he said.

The shopping center, located in downtown Montreal, is criticized for using the popular children’s song Baby Shark in order to discourage people experiencing homelessness from loitering on emergency exit stairs.

The Complexe Desjardins has been broadcasting music for a year in the stairwells to respond to “security problems” involving people experiencing homelessness, its spokesperson, Jean-Benoît Turcotti, said Thursday.