It’s been ten years since I said it, I shouted it: the SQ did not do its job, on September 4, 2012, at the Metropolis, when Pauline Marois gave her victory speech (1).
It’s not normal that a guy in a dressing gown was able to park his car behind the Metropolis that evening, get out of it with a long gun in his hand, approach the building, shoot at technicians from scene and start a fire near the back door… WITHOUT EVER BEING INTERCEPTED BY A POLICEMAN.
Yet this is what happened, with tragic consequences for Denis Blanchette (killed), Dave Courage (seriously injured) and so many other people (traumatized).
But in the purest tradition of opacity of the Government of Quebec, the reasons for this fiasco have obviously remained secret. Hush, we don’t make waves. The state simply allowed the SQ to investigate… itself.
And the report, of course, remained in the safe of the Sûreté du Québec, ultra-secret. In the name of the protection… of the security measures deployed by the SQ to protect the dignitaries (read the last words while imagining laughter in canes of Symphorian).
It’s amazing: a gunman in a dressing gown had just committed a political attack, sowing death and blood, he wanted to assassinate the PM-elected for the offense of sovereignty, the carnage could have been even greater, had it not been the providential jamming of his weapon…
But the state never investigated this SQ fiasco!
No parliamentary commission, no public inquiry commission, nothing. The attack was not the subject of any examination of the facts, of any self-criticism. The Quebec state has never tried to find out how its (very) provincial police could screw up to this point, if only to force the SQ to review its practices.
*****
It took Metropolis employees traumatized by the attack by the mad gunman — Guillaume Parisien, Audrey Dulong-Bérubé, Jonathan Dubé and Gaël Ghiringhelli — to decide to sue the government of Quebec (SQ) and the City of Montreal (SPVM). ) so that the torments that have rotted their lives since September 4, 2012 are recognized and compensated. They won their case in a decision rendered the day before yesterday.
In court, the Sûreté du Québec could not play hide and seek for very long. Officers (current and retired) had to testify under oath. Documents had to be filed in evidence… Like this mysterious report from the SQ which analyzed the work of the SQ, on the evening of September 4, 2012.
It’s appallingly stupid: the report is seven pages (!), it does not blame the SQ (lol), no witness was met during the “investigation” (!), the signatory of the report, Louis Bergeron , could not certify in Court having written the whole report (re-lol) and the SQ began to investigate the work of the SQ… four months after the attack (!)
I would add that the judge made officer Denis Rioux, in charge of writing the said report, confess that he had had his conclusions dictated to him (cane laughter, here, again) by his boss.
With the trial, we understood why the Sûreté du Québec had fought so hard to keep this “report” secret (the use of quotation marks is now required): it is the equivalent of research on the zoo animals produced by a 6 year olde year. And we understand why the lawyers for the Attorney General of Quebec fought so hard to keep this document away from the judge: it proved that the SQ had been negligent.
The judge noted that the SPVM had a responsibility in the debacle: the SPVM, through the voice of a high-ranking officer — Philippe Pichet, who was to become Montreal police chief three years later — had promised the SQ to the evaluation of the needs of the personnel required for the protection of the perimeter of the Metropolis…
Which has never been done, notes the judge.
Yes, the SPVM was at fault, but it was still the SQ which was responsible for the safety of Pauline Marois who had been chosen on September 4, 2012, to form the government.
It was up to the SQ to ensure that the SPVM was indeed protecting the perimeter of the Metropolis and to demand reinforcements if said perimeter was poorly protected (it was poorly protected).
The SQ did none of that.
It took ten years for this monumental failure to be recognized in black and white in the methodical and implacable decision of Judge Philippe Bélanger of the Superior Court, who was not fooled by the smokescreens multiplied by the lawyers for the Attorney General and the City of Montreal.
Lawyer Virginie Dufrene-Lemire planted lawyers for the City of Montreal and the Attorney General of Quebec who were paid from our taxes to defend the indefensible.
*****
Ten years later, allow me to salute those who allowed the SQ to conveniently hide its incompetence of September 4, 2012: the director general of the SQ Richard Deschesnes (gunned down by the PQ government in October 2012), his successor Mario Laprise and the former Deputy CEO Jocelyn Latulippe, who gave the mandate to concoct this “report”.
I add the former Minister of Public Security Stéphane Bergeron and the PQ government, who have chosen not to impose on the SQ a necessary public commission of inquiry into the Metropolis fiasco, for…
Why, exactly? We’ll never know.
Has the SQ learned from its debacle of September 4, 2012?
No.
Because during the trial, in April, four months before the start of the electoral campaign for the election of October 3, Pierre Bertrand, responsible for the protection of dignitaries of the SQ, testified: “The basic security plan will be the same. […] The recipe is the same from 2012 to 2022.”
Question for Quebec elected officials: are you sure you are well protected?
In closing, allow me to quote paragraph 124 of Judge Philippe Bélanger’s decision: “All the plaintiffs were surprised to see the absence of police officers behind the performance hall. Ghiringhelli testified to the effect that there were peace officers outside the Metropolis during certain concerts, including the one offered by the artist Prince at this performance hall…”
In Judge Bélanger’s decision, it is (literally) the detail that kills.
1. https://www.lapresse.ca/debats/chroniques/patrick-lagace/201209/06/01-4571514-de-la-sq-au-secret-service.php