Interview with the new head of public security | “We need our police officers”

All agents will keep their weapons, promises Alain Vaillancourt, but no question of inflating the size of the SPVM

Philippe Teisceira-Lessard
Press

The Montreal police officers are doing a “formidable” job, and there is no question of disarming or defining them, assured Tuesday the new head of public security Valérie Plante.

After her election victory last month, the mayor created a surprise by handing the hottest portfolio of the executive committee to a 56-year-old social worker, unknown to the general public and unaccustomed to the limelight. Elected municipal in Ville-Émard since 2013, he joined the executive committee – the “council of ministers” of the town hall.

In his first interview since his appointment, granted to The Press, Alain Vaillancourt admits to having been surprised to be entrusted with this “immense challenge”, but promises to work extra hard to tackle it. “I realize this is a huge task,” he said, sitting in a living room at Montreal city hall.

But he’s not the only one working hard. “We need our police officers,” said Mr. Vaillancourt, taking advantage of his appearance on the scene to reach out to the police. “They do a big job: today, it is really not easy, it is dreadful to be a police officer in our territory. […] The stakes are high. They have a lot of pressure to deal with the violence. ”

And they need their service weapon to do their job, the new police chief said bluntly.

During the election campaign, the support of the Plante administration for the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) was questioned daily by Denis Coderre. The attack may not stick to Alain Vaillancourt, far from the figure of anti-police activist: without a partisan background, he was recruited by Projet Montreal after taking the head of the aquatic club of the South West where his children swam.

He was also absent when the Project Montreal convention mainly questioned the need for all Montreal police to be armed, last April: a low-rental housing in his neighborhood was burning, throwing dozens of people into the street.

Outbreak of violence

Himself a great athlete, the fifty-something has already started his political background race to the executive committee. At the top of his list of priorities: the increase in shootings involving young people in certain Montreal neighborhoods. The causes are multiple, argued Mr. Vaillancourt, but the solution lies in bringing Montrealers together and their police officers.

“We need a bond of trust. It is absolutely necessary that the police work with the population, that the population work with the police. If there is no bond of trust, it is certain that the problem will be harder to resolve, ”said Mr. Vaillancourt.

In his opinion, the SPVM is not experiencing a crisis in this regard.

“I’m not ready to say that trust is broken,” he said. I think we have work to do to strengthen ties. If, in certain isolated cases, in certain instances, the link is weaker, it will be up to me, our team and everyone to put everything in place to re-establish these links. ”

Elected in 2013 after a 22-year career in social work, Mr. Vaillancourt also stresses the importance of community work to put an end to the outbreak of violence.

“Yes, the young man who has a gun now, we must act,” explained Mr. Vaillancourt. But upstream, we must go to prevention. […] It’s not sexy, prevention, it’s not something you see immediately, but it does. ”

250 “additional” police officers

Despite the appointment of Alain Vaillancourt, it was his boss who suffered the first controversy of the mandate in terms of public security. After suggesting in the campaign that an administration of Projet Montréal would add 250 police officers to the SPVM forces, Valérie Plante “clarified” after the poll that this figure included those who will replace retirements. In short, that the total number of police officers would increase much less.

In an interview, Alain Vaillancourt stuck to the position of the mayor. “It was always very clear that our commitment was 250 additional police officers”, he said, specifying in turn that the word “additional” corresponds in his opinion to a gross increase, rather than net, of the number of police officers in Montreal.

Another promise of his political formation: the establishment of a body camera program for the police. Alain Vaillancourt reiterated that the project should see the light of day in 2022. “We are committed to doing it”, he stressed.

Montreal is currently awaiting the results of a pilot project by the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) in four municipalities in order to model its own program. It will only be a question of adjustments, assured Mr. Vaillancourt: the Plante administration will not abandon its commitment even if the SQ report is unfavorable towards the use of body cameras, he said.