Fondé en 1983 --Unis pour la diversité et l'égalité raciale

“BANKING WHILE BLACK” CASE SETTLED AT CANADIAN HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL



Montreal, December 5, 2014 --- The racial profiling case involving an English-speaking Black man who was arrested by Laval Police after withdrawing money from an ATM machine, has been successfully settled before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal this week.

During his visit to the branch in April 2012, Mr. Wayne Foster was mistaken a BMO employee as the robbery suspect. The police was called, culminating in his being arrested and detained at gunpoint. However, Mr. Foster does not share any physical resemblance with the suspects other than the fact of being male and Black; the police quickly released after viewing the evidence and realized that he was the mistaken for the robbery suspect.

As a result of the traumatizing treatment he experienced, Mr. Foster enlisted CRARR’s help in filing a complaint against BMO before the Canadian Human Rights Commission. After two years of investigation, the Commission referred the case to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for a hearing. A settlement was reached at the end of the mediation before the Tribunal.