De-policing: Internal Reality, Political Co-optation

I — The Starting Point

A confusion that no one is in a hurry to clear up

The Quebec public debate on de-policing suffers from a confusion that neither police unions nor their opponents seem in any hurry to clear up.

On one side, the phenomenon is instrumentalized to resist accountability. On the other, it is denied to avoid acknowledging an uncomfortable institutional reality.

Both positions betray the available empirical evidence — and, above all, they betray the majority of officers who simply want to do their job well and be treated with respect.

I write from a dual vantage point: that of a jurist who knows the legal obligations of police forces, and that of a practitioner who has seen, across decades of service in the RCMP, what negative organizational cultures actually produce. Both perspectives converge on the same conclusion.

II — What the Research Says

What the research says — and does not say

Greg Brown's doctoral thesis (Brown himself is a retired Ottawa Police officer), based on 3,660 officers across 23 North American police services, documents that 72% report deliberately reducing their proactive interactions. This figure is often cited by police unions as proof of a crisis caused by external oversight. That is a selective reading that inverts the causal arrow.

By the field training officers who "un-teach" the academy in the very first week of street deployment, by the negative veterans who pressure recruits, and by a subculture that normalizes avoidance as a professional survival strategy. "FIDO" — F… It, Drive On — is not a reaction to modernity. It is a tradition.

The Quebec studies by Béliveau, Mulone and Pérusse-Roy (2024, 2026) for the École nationale de police du Québec (ENPQ) refine the picture. Only 16.3% of Quebec officers exhibit radical de-policing.

More importantly, their 2026 study identifies the causal driver of radical de-policing not in external oversight, but in internal organizational injustice — disciplinary processes perceived as arbitrary, and a sense of abandonment by management in difficult moments.

This finding does not surprise me.

I have seen solid officers begin to falter not because the public was criticizing them, but because their own organization had treated them badly.

The reform prescription, therefore, lies inside — not in weakening external accountability.

III — The Shortage Myth

The shortage myth and the lever of selection

There will always be more candidates than open positions in police services.

Young people wait years to enter this profession. This is not a profession in a recruitment crisis. It is a profession in a selection crisis.

These pressures — the populist retirees, the chronic complainers within the ranks, the cynical training officers, the veterans who normalize FIDO — existed in my day as well. They still exist. The difference today is that empirical research documents them with precision.

A rigorous psychological evaluation focused on resistance to group pressure, structured interviews that distinguish vocation from a simple attraction to prestige or authority, and active follow-up during the first years of service: these are available tools, insufficiently used.

The careful selection of field training officers is, in this regard, the reform with the highest return on investment. A cynical trainer contaminates a dozen recruits in a few years. The selection of this role is not a formality — it is a strategic decision.

IV — The Legal Framework

What the law requires

On the legal plane, the normalization of de-policing is not merely an organizational failing. It is a documentable violation.

I raise a question not yet resolved by Quebec courts: if a field training officer deliberately teaches a recruit to avoid visible minorities, and that recruit causes harm through inaction, can the liability of the training officer — and of the organization that assigned them to that role — be engaged?

The case law from Luamba (2022 QCCS 3866) and the decisions of the CDPDJ provide the doctrinal foundations for this question. It deserves to be asked.

V — The Silent Majority

The silent majority

I will close with what I believe to be the simplest and most ignored truth in this debate.

The majority of police officers want to do their job well. They want to be treated with respect internally. It is this experience — or its absence — that shapes their relationship with the public, more than any external oversight.

An officer who feels supported, recognized, and treated fairly by their organization has neither the need nor the temptation to disengage. They have the inner resources to treat the public with the same respect they themselves receive.

The ones aimed at internal governance, at the selection of training officers, at organizational justice, and at the accountability of supervisors.

De-policing will be resolved not by weakening external accountability, but by building organizations that deserve their members' engagement — and by selecting members who deserve the public's trust.

These two requirements are two sides of the same professional obligation.