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A Hollywood indie film director is seeking court authorization to launch a class-action lawsuit against the city of Westmount, alleging that it “turned a blind eye” as one of its employees, a hockey coach, sexually abused him and about 50 other boys for years.

Matthew Bissonnette, the 49-year-old director of such films as Passenger Side and Who Loves the Sun, says in the court motion filed in Quebec Superior Court Friday that the city permitted the employee “to regularly and consistently maintain unusual and inappropriately close relationships with the boys he supervised.”

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The employee, identified in the court document as John Garland, died in 2012. Garland served as the director of Westmount’s parks and recreation department from 1953 until his retirement in 1987, and also coached peewee hockey for more than three decades.

The allegations in the court papers have not been proven in court. Garland’s family could not be reached for comment, but one of his longtime friends, 93-year-old Dave McCrindle of Côte-St-Luc, said the allegations of sexual abuse are “absolutely false.”