A shopping centre has sparked outrage by playing the children’s song “Baby Shark” on continuous loop to deter homeless people from using its stairwells.
Complexe Desjardins, a mall and office complex in downtown Montreal, has been broadcasting the viral tune at various speeds through speakers in its emergency exit stairwells for the past year.
The controversial tactic has been branded “cruel and unusual” by Canadian homeless advocacy groups, who argue it merely displaces vulnerable people rather than addressing the root causes of homelessness.
Mall spokesperson Jean-Benoît Turcotti said the music was installed “because we were having problems in these areas.”
Complexe Desjardins has been slammed by charity groups
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“Since the installation of this sound solution, we have noticed an improvement in the situation,” he said, adding there were no plans to stop playing the song.
The company maintains it is committed to supporting homeless people, noting that its owner, Desjardins Group, pledged £946,000 for homelessness initiatives in Montreal in 2023.
The mall is situated near the Old Brewery Mission, the city’s largest homelessness support organisation. Sam Watts, CEO of Welcome Hall Mission, strongly condemned the mall’s approach.
“It isn’t possible to resolve the complexities of homelessness by using juvenile tactics that are conceived to exclude people,” he said. “You don’t solve a problem by displacing a problem.”
The Old Brewery Mission, just a few streets away from the centre
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David Chapman, who heads the shelter Resilience Montreal, called the practice “inhumane,” saying it merely irritates vulnerable people until they move along.
Watts added that while he understands merchants’ concerns about increasing visibility of homelessness, “the answer isn’t to do things that are going to further make people who are vulnerable even more vulnerable.”
The controversial tactic is not unique to Montreal. In 2023, a clothing store owner in Nanaimo, British Columbia, played “Baby Shark” to prevent people sleeping in front of his shop.
Officials in West Palm Beach, Florida, employed a similar strategy in 2019, blasting the song throughout the night to keep people from sleeping on a city-owned banquet facility’s patio.
Chapman points to a deeper issue behind the problem. “In the last 10 years in Canada, there’s been a movement away from funding homeless day shelters and night shelters and we’re beginning to see the consequences of that,” he said.
Complexe Desjardins has defended its approach, saying it has hired two social workers to maintain dialogue with homeless individuals.
“Our aim is not to coerce, but to support these people,” Turcotti insisted.
The mall’s tactics have drawn mixed reactions on social media, with some defending it as “creative” and “better than dousing them with water.”