The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) police officers will bring out their clown pants on Thursday morning, dissatisfied with the way the negotiations with Quebec are going.
“We have no other choice than to resort to a means of visibility which carries a message of dissatisfaction,” said the president of the Association of Quebec Provincial Police Officers (APPQ), Jacques Painchaud, via communicated.
The APPQ had already concluded an agreement in principle with Quebec which provided for an increase in the overall remuneration of police officers of around 21% over five years. The members of the association, however, rejected this agreement in principle by 59%.
It is the delay between this rejection and the resumption of negotiations which dissatisfied the APPQ. A meeting was held on Wednesday between the two parties, but “the government was not able to demonstrate to us its desire to reach an agreement by improving the first,” the union indicated in its press release.
Result: “police officers of the Sûreté du Québec are asked to wear camouflage cargo pants or jeans during their working hours.”
Last August, the courts invalidated the Couillard government’s law adopted in 2017 to prohibit the wearing of such clothing.
This ban violated the agents’ freedom of expression and association and was not justified by public safety concerns, according to Judge Florence Lucas of the Superior Court.
“The consequences of the attack on the fundamental rights of the police officers prove to be disproportionate in relation to the probable beneficial effects of the disputed provisions,” his judgment stated. “Neither empirical research nor facts demonstrate that the substitution or alteration of the uniform can have an effect on service to the population and public safety. »