The Collège de Maisonneuve dissociates itself from a text that appeared in this year’s school diary and is entitled “Abolir la police: comment ça marche? at a time when Quebec is experiencing an upsurge in gun crimes.
Posted at 6:08 p.m.
In a press release released on Wednesday, the College specifies that it “is not involved in the production of this agenda” and that it is not “consulted and has no right of inspection over its content” either. .
It is instead up to the General Society of Students of the College de Maisonneuve (SOGÉÉCOM), the CEGEP student association, to decide on the content of this agenda distributed to all students at the start of the school year.
The Collège de Maisonneuve also recalls that it does not approve of the publication of the text on the police force, ” [puisqu’il] contributes itself through its program in Police Technology to train police officers”.
“The police are ineffective”
“It’s not just that the police are ineffective. In our communities, police forces are most of the time downright harmful. The history of the police – in North America and elsewhere – is a history of violence against marginalized people”, states, among other things, the text published in the student diary.
Its authors call for a redistribution of the sums granted to the police forces towards “community structures based on security, support and prevention”.
“The ‘work’ of the police consists mainly of unnecessary roadside checks, the arrest of non-violent drug users [sic]the harassment of black and racialized people, and the superfluous management of minor offenses ”, can we also read there.
For 20 years
For its part, SOGÉÉCOM replies that it was surprised by the exit from the College since texts questioning the role of the police – some of which were signed by the Committee opposed to police brutality (COBP) – have been published in the school diary since over 20 years.
“We publish various political texts that are part of the mandates adopted in the General Assembly and we have in particular mandates to oppose police brutality”, explains the coordination delegate for the executive council of SOGÉÉCOM, Julie Briland.
As for the choice to publish this text in the current context of armed violence in Montreal, the delegate affirmed that the moment could not be better chosen to question the approach of the authorities. “We even think it’s a good idea because this text talks about an institutional change aimed at improving living together,” says Julie Briand. It is part of a healthy debate: how to solve this problem [de la violence armée] ? »
SOGÉÉCOM does not intend to withdraw the text in question from the school agenda. “We think it’s important to preserve freedom of expression when it comes to questions about the police,” says Julie Briand.