The more it changes, the more it is the same.
If the municipal election campaign was proof that former mayor Denis Coderre had remained the same, the start of Valérie Plante’s second term also shows us that the mayor has not lost the habit of quickly breaking her promises.
Less than a month after her election, she put aside her intention to add 250 police officers to Montreal, much as she had broken her commitment to keep the rise in property taxes below the rate of inflation, there is four years.
Let’s go back to 2018.
Two months after her surprise election, Valérie Plante tabled her first budget. By juggling with percentages, she makes questionable mathematical contortions in order to convince citizens that their tax increase will only be 1.9%, while their bill will instead climb by 3.3%.
Not only is the tax hike it presents artificially deflated, but in addition, it uses an inflation rate of 2.1% for Montreal, while the most recent figure is only 1.7%. Certainly, the mayor’s calculator is very strange.
Back in 2021.
Shootings, murders, proliferation of firearms… Denis Coderre insists that Montreal is no longer safe and promises to add 250 police officers. Five days before the poll, Valérie Plante matches her promise, announcing the hiring of 250 agents by 2023, including 80 by the end of January 2022.
Moreover, this promise is astonishing on the part of Projet Montréal which, in April, proposed a pilot project aimed at withdrawing firearms from certain police officers, an idea which was not in the electoral platform, however.
After the election, the mayoress plays again with numbers… and words. She now speaks of a “gross” addition instead of a “net” addition. This means that the vast majority of the 250 hires will be used to replace retirements (177 only in 2020).
On that account, Montreal will not have more police officers in 2023, contrary to what voters understood during the campaign.
Well, you will say that sooner or later all politicians end up breaking some of their promises. But what is shocking in the case of Mme Plant is the speed with which she goes back on her word. And his clumsy way of trying to hide his change of course.
Madam Mayor, citizens know how to count! They are not fooled.
The worst part is that it is not even so clear that there is a shortage of police officers in Montreal, despite the assertions of the SPVM and the Police Brotherhood.
In Quebec, there are almost as many police officers per 100,000 inhabitants (184) as in Canada as a whole (183). But it is true that this number fell slightly between 2015 and 2019, as the administrative workload of the police increased, due to the number of reports to write and forms to fill out.
One thing is certain, with the recent about-face of Mayor Plante, the police are likely to come up against the grain at the Summit against the violence that she wants to organize at the end of January.
Despite everything, we must salute this initiative, which aims to bring together governments, police officers, community groups and schools in order to find solutions to the outbreak of shootings in Montreal.
The eradication of violence goes far beyond the responsibility of the police, who come to the end of the track. If we want to tackle the root of the problem, we must focus on prevention, in particular by ensuring that community groups that often drag the devil by the tail have access to stable funding.
Unfortunately, prevention takes time to bear fruit. And politicians who seek quick results are increasingly hesitant to fund projects that will deliver results after their term in office.
We will therefore need commitments in this direction in the coming weeks. Commitments that will have to be kept.