Quebec police made three arrests and issued 170 tickets during the three days of demonstrations that drew several thousand people to Parliament Hill between Thursday and Sunday.
The head of the police department of the City of Quebec (SPVQ), Denis Turcotte, had trouble hiding his satisfaction Monday morning. The upper town feared the worst, but it was finally without major annoyance that the “freedom convoy” left the Quebec capital on Sunday evening.
“It’s a collaborative work of everyone, underlined the chief, delighted that the right to demonstrate was able to be expressed in complete safety. [Nos agents] were really excellent. »
Quebec is not caught in the same quagmire as Ottawa, which is struggling to free its downtown from an occupation that has dragged on for 10 days. The SPVQ wanted to acknowledge the good cooperation of the organizers, who themselves asked the participants to leave Parliament Hill on Sunday evening.
The Quebec police had only one criminal offense to sanction during the 72 hours of demonstrations. Its author is a driver who immobilized his van to block traffic on René-Lévesque Boulevard on Saturday evening, and who then refused to comply with the police.
Nearly half of the reports given during the rallies, ie 72 of them, concerned violations of the road safety code. The other 98 were related to violations of municipal regulations, including 48 for faults related to parking.
The SPVQ says it is ready to host the second rally announced in two weeks by the leaders of the convoy who left Thursday morning from the North Shore, Bernard “Rambo” Gauthier and Kevin “Big” Grenier.
“If there is another gathering that occurs in the city as there are several a year on our territory, we will be there to respond to it,” assured Chief Turcotte.
A welcomed restraint
The good words received by the Quebec police for their management of the demonstrations contrast with the actions denounced two months earlier by the entire political class. Videos showing SPVQ agents behaving brutally had earned the capital’s police a chorus of criticism at the turn of December. Since then, the Quebec police department has reinstated all the officers who are the subject of investigations in the wake of these events.
The SPVQ did not want to comment on this file on Monday.
On social networks, in particular, others recalled that 10 years ago, student demonstrators had not enjoyed the same restraint as the protesters of the last few days from the police.
“We adjust a lot to the types of gatherings, to the types of clienteles who show up to demonstrate because it is very variable in terms of the type of people who demonstrate, depending on the cause,” said the head of the SPVQ, Denis Turcotte.
He stressed that his police department is “always looking for best practices. »
Over the past decade, the SPVQ has “evolved”, according to André Turcotte, the deputy director of territorial surveillance.
“Even in the name of our units, at the time we spoke of crowd control, now it is the unit of maintenance and restoration of order. Our techniques, yes, evolve over the years, according to the evolution of society as well. We are constantly adapting. »