Montreal Police Department | The chief wants fewer neighborhood stations

The Montreal police chief revealed Thursday evening that he was considering closing neighborhood stations in order to regain control of his department’s budget. The service needs a “new model”, he believes.

Philippe Teisceira-Lessard
Press

Sylvain Caron argued that maintaining 30 antennas scattered across the territory of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) was too costly in terms of money and personnel.

“I no longer believe in the current structure,” he said to the elected municipal officials responsible for reviewing municipal services. “You have to get out of the structure in which you are currently if you want to survive. ”

“If we maintain the current situation of 30 neighborhood stations on the island of Montreal, 250 police officers will be missing,” he continued, in a virtual hearing. Currently I maintain buildings and put police in buildings […], while my police should be on the road. “

The Plante administration did not reject Mr. Caron’s plan out of hand, but indicated that it had not received a “formal request” to this effect. Two years ago, she suffered strong criticism in the English-speaking community after giving the green light to the closure of the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood station, merged with that of Côte-Saint-Luc.

The Montreal Police Brotherhood did not want to react on Thursday evening.

The police chief was responding to a question from the mayor of Saint-Laurent, Alan DeSousa, who wanted a promise not to close neighborhood stations in the next few years. Mr. Caron went in the completely opposite direction.

“As mayor, we want our communities to be safe and our citizens to feel that they are safe,” said the borough mayor in an interview afterwards. Mr. DeSousa, whose borough lost a neighborhood station 15 years ago, said he hoped that “no one has the bad surprise to learn that his neighborhood station will disappear”.

Recurring budget overruns

Chief Sylvain Caron came to present his department’s budget for 2022 and its financial statements for 2021. For the fifth year in a row, the police greatly exceeded the (yet growing) budget allocated to them. An overrun of 51 million in 2021, attributed by the SPVM staff to the outbreak of armed violence and the pandemic. Its 2022 budget is growing by 6%, the highest increase of the entire municipal apparatus.

Before the members of the City’s Finance Committee, Sylvain Caron admitted that the financial situation of his department was not sustainable.

“We are looking to find a new model for you [servir], that we be more efficient, more effective, he said. And that we stop increasing costs. “

At the heart of the new model, which Mr. Caron promises to present in 2022 and of which he has already informed the City Manager: the questioning of the neighborhood police model introduced in Montreal 25 years ago.

“Is the neighborhood station a guarantee of safety?” A neighborhood station, it’s used to change [pour] go do some work, ”he said. “You have to find the ideal match: having a police presence when you need it, where you need it, but not having police officers for a structure. We have to get out of the structure. You have to have police officers on the streets. ”

He indicated that as of this week, the SPVM had 4,308 police officers, a significant drop from the 4,507 in the service as of December 31, 2020.

Anne Chamandy, director of communications of the SPVM, explained just after that the distribution of police officers on the island of Montreal depended on sometimes obsolete variables. The ethnic diversity or the density of a neighborhood is not taken into account in the distribution of the workforce, while these variables can have an impact on the duration of the interventions, she illustrated. “There are a lot of new indicators in 2022 that we will have to take into account,” she argued.

“A field presence throughout the territory”

In reaction, the Plante administration affirmed that it would wait for concrete proposals from the SPVM before making a decision.

“We have not received a formal request from the SPVM on the merger of neighborhood stations at present, said Alain Vaillancourt, in charge of public security files, in a statement sent in writing. If it is a need formally expressed to us by the police force, we will carefully assess their proposals. ”

He added: “One thing is certain, we share the same desire as the SPVM, to have an ever more efficient police service, close to the population with a field presence throughout the territory to ensure the safety of Montrealers. ”

Late Thursday evening, the SPVM did not respond to our interview request.

Press could not question Mr. Caron during the public question period of the Finance Committee, its president having ruled that the media should be excluded. The SPVM had nevertheless asked Press to submit questions during the hearing.