This kind of thing is sickening. Quebec sometimes seems like the most corrupt outpost of North America.

I assume it was local cops and not Highway Troopers (who are federal)

Ed March had a very similar problem...

Ed's March across Canada - Quebec - Canada Moto Guide

I don't know where you come from however in Canada there are no such thing as Highway Troopers. In the province of Ontario you have the Ontaario Provincial Police (OPP) patrolling the Highway ans in Quebec you have the Quebec Provincial Police. QPP. For the rest of the country you have the RCMP and in Alberta the Provincial Sheriffs Office.

Neither the OPP, QPP or Sherriffs are Federal.

Please if you are going to call out corrupt police officers or departments get the story right.

Riq

Riq is correct in his description of policing in Canada, however, to provide greater clarity, the following is a slightly different (hopefully clearer) way of saying the same thing:

We have one federal police force in Canada, that is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP provide policing to communities and rural areas that do not operate their own police force.

Two provinces that I know of (Ontario and Quebec) operate their own provincial police forces. These happen to be the two most populous provinces. In these two provinces, the RCMP does not have a 'public' presence; the provincial police forces provide policing in community and rural areas that do not have their own police forces.

Any community in Canada can set up their own community (in other words, municipal) police force. This is the normal practice in communities with a population of 100,000 or more. Smaller communities usually contract with the RCMP or (in Ontario & Quebec) the provincial police to provide police services, simply because this is less expensive per capita than setting up a municipal police force in a small town.

There are no 'highway specific' police departments in Canada. But, there is a certain amount of specialization within the federal, provincial, and municipal police forces to do traffic work. In other words, within a big city police department like Toronto (about 4 million people live in Toronto), the Toronto Police force has a specialized division that deals exclusively with traffic. But there is no visual distinction (uniforms, cars, etc.) within these specialized units.

Police officers in Canada are very highly paid. It is not uncommon for a police officer in Canada to make CAD $100,000 (USD $70,000) per year in salary. The entry level qualifications are also very high, at the very least, a college degree, more commonly, a 4 year university degree.

I've lived in Canada almost all my life, and it is very rare to hear of corruption amongst police. Occasionally, a scandal erupts if a policeman has been found to plant drugs in a suspect's car, but exhorting a bribe from a citizen during a traffic stop is unheard of.

I'm not saying that the original poster's story is untrue - just that if it did happen the way he reported it, it is a very uncommon occurrence.

Michael

PS: 'Sheriffs' exist in Canada, but only for very specialized purposes - they deliver court documents and things like that. They are not involved in any way with police work.

Apologies; I thought the highway cops were Federal. This makes me even more nervous because which ever way you slice it the Police seem to do more take than give here in Quebec.