The Daily UbuntuThread 03 · Racialized but Human · September 25, 2026
Driving without being a suspect
A young Black Montrealer, often pulled over for no reason, took his case all the way to the Supreme Court. The courts recognized racial profiling.
1 · The scene
A Thursday evening on Pie-IX Boulevard. A young man is driving his grandmother home from church. In the rear-view mirror, flashing lights. He puts his hands on the wheel, clearly visible, the way he was taught at sixteen.
His grandmother says nothing. Then, once they are on their way again, she touches his shoulder: "You did well. But it's not for you to be ashamed." He keeps those words for next time.
Original vignette
2 · The documented case
The Luamba case
Joseph-Christopher Luamba, a young Black Montrealer, got his driver's licence in 2019. After that, he was pulled over by police several times without being ticketed. He decided to challenge in court the rule in the Highway Safety Code that allows police to stop a driver without cause.
In October 2022, Justice Michel Yergeau of the Quebec Superior Court ruled in his favour: he found that racial profiling exists and that this rule had become a vehicle for it. On October 23, 2024, the Quebec Court of Appeal confirmed that these stops without cause, outside a structured program, lead to racial profiling. The Government of Quebec took the case to the Supreme Court of Canada, which heard it on January 19 and 20, 2026.
The numbers support what many families live through. A report by researchers published in 2019, based on SPVM data from 2014 to 2017, shows that Black and Indigenous people were four to five times more likely to be stopped. By choosing to go to court, a single citizen gave a voice to all those who, before him, had kept these stops to themselves.
3 · The voice
“These stops are not random.”
4 · The question
What would it take for every young person behind the wheel to feel protected by the police, and not watched by them?
Sources
- Quebec Court of Appeal, Attorney General of Quebec v. Luamba, 2024 QCCA 1387. courdappelduquebec.ca
- McCarthy Tétrault, analysis of the Court of Appeal decision of October 23, 2024. www.mccarthy.ca
- Global News (The Canadian Press), Supreme Court hearings, January 19, 2026. globalnews.ca
- Canadian Civil Liberties Association, news release on the Luamba case, January 19, 2026. ccla.org
- UQAM Actualités, "Un rapport troublant" on police stops, 2019 (in French). actualites.uqam.ca
Every figure on this page links to a verifiable public source.
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