François Bonnardel increased the number of interviews yesterday to put security problems in courthouses into perspective.
The minister argued that basically, the attack that occurred at the Longueuil facility this week was an isolated case.
Rare
Events of this type are very rare, he insisted: only one in 2019, two in 2020, none in 2021, one in 2022 and three in 2023 (300% increase in one year, anyway.)
He kept making expressions like “I’m not trying to tell you that it’s not important”. No… but yes, all the same!
And he remained vague about what he intended to do, while ensuring equally imprecisely that he “took the situation seriously”.
The costs of a tightening, where we would multiply the “arks” of metal detection, would undoubtedly be enormous. This is still what judges have been demanding for 15 years. Quebec argues that there is a severe lack of “special constables”.
And to compensate for this, he also proposed to the judges “the addition of less trained and unarmed security guards”. Sharp as usual, the chief magistrates (the former of the Court of Quebec Lucie Rondeau and her colleague from the superior court Marie-Anne Paquette) had seen “a dilution of security”. A compromise might have been preferable to the status quo.
- Listen to the political meeting between Antoine Robitaille and Benoît Dutrizac via QUB :
Fortress
Should we transform all our public buildings into fortresses with airport measures? Basically, I tend to answer no. But perhaps my position has become angelic.
On the day of the massacre of the National Assembly, in May 1984, I observed, stunned, from the top of the fortifications, the police deployment (I was 15 years old) around the parliament. On television in the evening, the president of Assnat, Richard Guay, affirmed that he was not going to transform the “people’s house” into a citadel.
Thirty-one years later, the irruption of a female activist into the middle of a press conference room next to Minister Hélène David triggered an extreme tightening of security in Quebec. The attack on the federal parliament the previous year also obviously weighed in the balance.
Photo Stevens LeBlanc
Our houses of the people have almost become citadels. There are now detection arches in each of their entrances. As in the halls of buildings hosting official events of the parties in power: general councils, congresses, etc.
Lower risk?
At the MSP, we certify that proper risk analyzes have led to this obvious disparity between the security offered to elected officials and the lesser security deployed around the buildings where actors in the legal world are active.
I am aware that our elected officials are the subject of crazy threats in this era of post-factual polarization. But it seems to me that courthouses too: judges, prosecutors, “non-master” employees are also evolving in this somewhat crazy era and deserve better protection. While remembering that justice is public and that the palaces where it is administered must also avoid, as much as possible, transforming into citadels.