Couple fears for safety after man hurls racist insults in front of their 8-year-old daughter
Nadisha Hosein was pulling out of her driveway in Montreal's LaSalle borough with her husband, Pramit Patel, and their eight-year-old daughter last Thursday, when a pedestrian came out of nowhere behind her.
"When I saw him, I thought I'll just wait until he passes, and I'll continue reversing," she said.
The man, however, started berating her and her family, yelling racist slurs.
"Go back to India or Pakistan, get out of here!" the man in his 50s yelled in French as a neighbour captured the exchange on camera.
He also yelled at the two for speaking English.
Patel and Hosein were both born and raised in the Montreal area and speak French fluently.
"He told me to go home, so I thought, maybe he wants me to cross the bridge and return to Chateauguay where I was born," said Hosein.
The video then shows their next-door neighbour, Caroline Vinchon, trying to intervene, urging the man not to insult people in the neighbourhood.
"All the while, my eight-year-old daughter was sitting in the back seat, and she was witnessing the entire thing," said Hosein.
Vinchon first heard the shouting from her living room and took her share of insults.
"When he heard my accent," said the France-born woman, "he said, 'you're different, go back to France.' He started insulting me very badly. I told him you can be angry at people, but you cannot insult them about their race, religion or language."
Hosein and her husband called the police to report what they felt was a hate crime.
They said, however, that the Montreal police (SPVM) was of little help.
"They said they couldn't do anything since there were no threats involved," said Hosein.
The SPVM created a team specialized in investigating hate crimes in 2016, but the legal threshold for prosecuting a hate crime requires a physical threat or attack for racial motives - threatening someone because of their religion or vandalizing a home or place of worship using hateful messages for example.
But there's a subtle distinction between a hate incident and a hate crime.
Offensive material or insults are considered hate incidents.
Hosein said the SPVM initially said there was nothing they could do, but the police said it would transfer the incident report and the video to its hate crime division.
Anti-racism activists said the police should at least have tried to track down the man.
"Identify the guy, and determine his ability to escalate the incident from verbal diarrhea to an actual act of violence," said former RCMP officer and anti-racism group Red Coalition president Alain Babineau. "But they didn't do that. That's lazy police work."
Neighbours told CTV News that the man often walks in the neighbourhood. CTV News found the man, who denied he was racist and said there were two sides to the story.
He then physically tried to assault this reporter when pressed for comments.
"This is my home," he said while walking away and saying that the bilingual couple had a duty to speak French.
For Hosein though, the insults cut deeply. Especially because it happened in front of their daughter
"While we were driving away, my daughter said, 'Mommy are we the wrong colour?'" she said. "So I said, 'We're not the wrong colour. There are just stupid people in the world.'"
She did, however, have harsh words for the current political climate in Quebec because of the recent adoption of Bill 21, which limits the use of religious symbols, and Bill 96, an updated version of Quebec's French-language law.
"It's the first time my husband and I have experienced racism the whole time we've been living here," she said. "Premier Francois Legault said he was against multiculturalism [and] he has a big following. And maybe this man was one of them."
The family is now concerned about their own safety, knowing that the man who came at them so aggressively lives in their neighbourhood.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter banned from NBA
Raptors player Jontay Porter has been handed a lifetime ban from The National Basketball Association (NBA) following an investigation which found he disclosed confidential information to sports betters, the league says.
BREAKING Former Air Canada employees among suspects identified in gold heist at Pearson airport: police
Nine people have been arrested in connection with the gold heist at Pearson International airport last year, Peel Regional Police said Wednesday.
Earthquake jolts southern Japan
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 hit southern Japan late on Wednesday, said the Japan Meteorological Agency, without issuing a tsunami warning.
MPs summon ArriveCan contractor to the House to be admonished in rare parliamentary display
Enacting an extraordinarily rarely used parliamentary power, MPs have summoned an ArriveCan contractor to appear before the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon to be admonished publicly for failing to answer their questions.
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
Gas prices across Ontario expected to climb to levels not seen since 2022, analyst says
Ontario is going to see a big jump at the pumps later this week as gas prices in the province hit levels not seen in nearly two years, according to one industry analyst.
Ancient skeletons unearthed in France reveal Mafia-style killings
More than 5,500 years ago, two women were tied up and probably buried alive in a ritual sacrifice, using a form of torture associated today with the Italian Mafia, according to an analysis of skeletons discovered at an archaeological site in southwest France.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s sons have released a single together
A new Lennon and McCartney collaboration is the last thing anybody expected.
Some millennials say federal budget was 'a letdown' amid cost of living struggles
It’s a picture-perfect scene: Adam and Maria Reynolds are playing with their daughters inside their Port Coquitlam, B.C. home. Watching them together, you might not realize the Reynolds household is stretched to its limit.