The organizers of two camps dismantled this summer in Montreal want to obtain $10,000 per person evicted from the City, believing in particular that the police put an end to peaceful demonstrations without justification.
Two requests for similar collective actions were filed on December 23 concerning two separate dismantlings that occurred “without notice” on July 5 in Montreal, causing in particular material damage, states the text of the requests consulted by The Journal.
“By dismantling the camp, each member of the group saw [certaines de ses] fundamental freedoms restricted” by police officers as well as representatives of the City itself, we can read in these two requests, filed at the Montreal courthouse.
To demonstrate against dismantling
“Each member of the group exercised their freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly by participating […] to the activities of the Refus local camp,” which occupied part of the Parc des Faubourgs from July 1 to 5, 2024, we read in the first request.
This camp aimed in particular to request a moratorium on the dismantling of homeless camps as well as “to open a collective dialogue on the use of public space. »
Léandre Plouffe, one of the organizers of the camp, is named in a request for class action filed against the City of Montreal.
Photo Zoé Arcand
Fewer than ten itinerants had settled there. They would have been “returned” to the street for lack of services corresponding to their needs, the plaintiffs argue.
Around ten activists also occupied the camp at the time of its dismantling, during which they judged to have been victims of discrimination “on the basis of their political beliefs”.
Zoé Arcand / JdeM
They would then have faced “frustrating administrative opacity and an improvised bureaucratic process” when recovering the property, reads the court document.
The City of Montreal would thus have “mobilized a totally disproportionate police response and put an end to a peaceful demonstration without justification,” assert the applicants.
A pro-Palestine camp
These same freedoms of “expression, associations and peaceful meetings” were allegedly “restricted” during the dismantling of the second camp, the “Al-Soumoud popular camp”, which occupied part of Victoria Square from June 22 to June 5. July 2024.
This temporary installation aimed in particular to “denounce” the investments of 14 million dollars by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec in “companies complicit in war crimes and Israeli genocide in Gaza”.
Photo Agence QMI, MAXIME DELAND
This dismantling, which occurred in the early morning, would represent, according to this request, “a civil fault and an abuse of rights” and would have exposed the fifteen demonstrators who slept there to “repression and intimidation on the part of the police forces “.
Thierry Laforce / Agence QMI
A petition with around a hundred signatures would have been destroyed, claim the applicants of this second encampment.
Photo Agence QMI, Thierry Laforce
Thousands of dollars requested
The plaintiffs of these two requests, represented by the same lawyers, are demanding compensation of $10,000 in punitive damages and $10,000 in compensation for the “harm suffered and the violation of their fundamental rights” for each individual. who occupied the camps at the time of the dismantling.
For people who occupied the camps before the dismantling, the amounts requested are $5,000.
The lawyers did not want to comment and the City did not respond to the request of the Journal at the time of posting this text.
