Scotiabank sit-in defendants say case ends in noise ticket

Editor’s note: This is a news release issued Oct. 26, 2026 by co-defendants in the Montreal Scotiabank sit-in case. It is published as received, with light style edits. The views and claims in it are the co-defendants’ own and have not been independently verified by Canada News Media. Quebec’s prosecution service says 21 of the 44 defendants were fined $300 under a city bylaw, 22 had charges dismissed after an alternative measures program and one charge was withdrawn. The City of Montreal and the prosecution declined to comment on the allegations of bias. Read our news story: Scotiabank sit-in case ends: 21 fined, 22 diverted.

Two-year criminal case against 44 Palestine solidarity defendants goes out with a bang

MONTREAL, Oct. 26, 2026: Fourteen remaining Scotiabank protesters are exiting the courts after more than two years of proceedings, citing judicial bias and discrimination. The criminal case, the largest recent mass arrest of pro-Palestinian activists in Canada, closes with a bylaw noise ticket, which the Crown offered to co-defendants after they filed a Charter challenge.

“This is an absurd end to a repressive prosecution that consumed over two years of court time and significant taxpayer funds,” said Marie, one of the co-defendants. “We were charged for opposing a genocide. Letting us off with a noise ticket doesn’t make that right, but exposes the weakness of the Crown’s case and how little the outcome had to do with justice. We should not have been charged in the first place.”

On April 15, 2024, the defendants held a sit-in at a downtown Scotiabank branch to demand the bank divest from Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company, which they say produces 80 per cent of the weapons and 85 per cent of the drones used by the Israeli military and markets its products as “battle-tested” on Palestinian civilians in Gaza. According to the co-defendants, Scotiabank had for years invested in Elbit, with more than US$100 million in investments as of late 2024. The protesters say they were mass-arrested, illegally detained and ill-treated by the Service de police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM) and were then criminally charged. The co-defendants and their lawyers argued that their constitutional rights were violated during arrest and detention, citing kettling, prolonged unlawful detention, restricted access to bodily needs and harassment by the SPVM.

“Bias, not justice, drove this process from the beginning. The court demonstrated a deeply concerning attitude toward justice and a clear bias in favour of the SPVM’s violations of the law and their own rules for interacting with protesters,” said Jean, another defendant.

“Our legal system failed to acknowledge that pressure to divest from war and genocide is a justifiable form of democratic engagement, but we won what we set out to achieve: Scotiabank fully divested from Elbit in February 2026. Now there are renewed efforts to pressure other Canadian companies to divest from the weapons manufacturer. And today we are filing a complaint against the judge who presided over this case for a repeated pattern of bias, because accountability doesn’t stop at the bank. Actions like ours are legitimate and necessary,” Jean said.

“Our case is emblematic of systemic bias, profiling and abuse of power, which erode our democratic values and threaten our right to protest,” said Marie. “We encourage everyone in Canada to pay closer attention to the ongoing criminalization of pro-Palestine solidarity activists, as they are the canary in the coal mine for free speech and the rights of all.”

The co-defendants say the names Marie and Jean are pseudonyms used to protect the identities of the people arrested.

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