My great fear about the growing shooting crisis in Montreal can be summed up in one word: toothpaste. As everyone knows, when the proverbial toothpaste is out of the tube, it’s almost impossible to put it back.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Canada is a market to be developed for operators of the black market in weapons, in the United States, a country which has more weapons than citizens. We are neighbors of a country crazy about its guns. This madness overflows here.
We still have an obligation of means to try to put the toothpaste back in the tube, to try to curb the circulation of weapons here in Canada, in Quebec, in Montreal.
We will have to try with all our strength: a country where anyone can get weapons to settle scores is a crazy country where no one is safe.
Here, in bulk, are some ideas for potential solutions. This is the result of several conversations and interviews in recent months with political and police sources.
Ottawa must stop seeing life in pink. The Supreme Court in 2015 torpedoed mandatory prison sentences for possession of prohibited weapons. That does not prevent the legislator from trying to impose such penalties, with a section of the Criminal Code that would align with the concerns of the Supreme Court.
I would point out in passing that the City of Montreal and the Government of Quebec, whatever one may think, are active in this matter. The great absentee? The Federal, as always busy hovering 30,000 feet above the stakes.
The Prime Minister of this country, Justin Trudeau, is an MP from Montreal. Ditto for the Minister of Justice, David Lametti. If they are alarmed by what is happening in their city, they should show it to us. For the moment, they are absent subscribers.
The borders are federal, by the way. Where do prohibited weapons usually come in? By the borders.
Not to mention that the federal police, the RCMP, no longer seems to be interested in organized crime, as Daniel Renaud reported last December.
Speaking of absence: Prime Minister Legault, on this issue, does not float at an altitude of 30,000 feet like Ottawa, but let’s say we would believe him if he told us he was unable to locate Rivière-des-Prairies on a geographical map.
The police force now. There is a war of numbers over the number of police officers hired, not hired, to be hired in Montreal, against the backdrop of election promises in 2021 and the upcoming renewal of the collective agreement. I’ll leave it to others to sort that out.
Reminder: there are more than 4,400 active police officers in Montreal. Even if we hired 200 tomorrow morning, would that make a huge difference in terms of impact in the fight against shootings? Not sure.
Of these 4,400 police officers, how many could be reassigned to the field, investigations and investigation support? How many tasks currently performed by police officers could be performed by civilians? Traffic around roadworks and faulty traffic lights: can we entrust this to Garda rather than patrol officers?
Fact: A huge portion of patrol work in Montreal is monopolized by homelessness and mental health cases. The police have to play social workers because the health care system is escaping loads of human beings…
It’s less time to do… the police.
Another fact, little known: several seizures of drugs and weapons are the result of criminal sources who inform the police. Criminals receive a few hundred dollars, sometimes thousands of dollars, to tell investigators where they can find a kilo of coke or a Glock.
Is there enough money in this kitty, that of the payment of the sources? I ask the question because the police are asking questions about it. We won’t make progress in arms seizures without paying bandits who betray their enemies… and especially their friends.
Fact: Recruiting sources is critical to all kinds of criminal investigations. In 2016, under the deficient leadership of Philippe Pichet, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) dismantled its four street gang squads. The police thus deprived themselves of investigators who knew very well the groups which, today, shoot in our streets. This expertise would be very useful today.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
The Mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante
I am not one of those who think that Valérie Plante secretly wants to defund the police. You don’t hire Martin Prud’homme – ex-chief of the Montreal police and of the Sûreté du Québec – as deputy director general of the city for public security if you want to defund the police.
But activists from Projet Montréal are openly in favor of defunding (and even for the disarming of certain police officers). Mme Plante recruited as a (defeated) candidate for mayor of Montreal North one of the fiercest voices of the defunding of the police, Will Prosper. It sent a funny signal to the Montreal police officers, let’s say.
It will also take more leadership at the head of the SPVM. The current Director General, Sophie Roy, is acting in her position at the Saint-Urbain Street headquarters.
Is she, yes or no, the woman of the situation?
If she is, give her the job. If it is not, let’s proceed: it is more than urgent that the troops have a leader firmly in place. The City intends to select the person who will lead the SPVM by the end of… 2022.
Sorry, but this is crazy, as Montreal is going through its worst public safety crisis since the biker war. The SPVM must have a leader who will become the face of police action. In addition, the City announced a public consultation to determine the criteria for hiring the person called to lead the Montreal police.
How to say ? It’s a beautiful idea that smells like lilac!
But if we want to give all activists who hate the police the opportunity to come and politicize the process of hiring the leader of the SPVM, we wouldn’t go about it any other way.
Fact: it will be more important for the person who will officially lead the SPVM to rally his increasingly demotivated police officers than to please the vast constellation of hyper-progressive activists who dream of a society without police.
Politically, Mayor Valérie Plante is facing her biggest political crisis since her accession to city hall. I will go further: she will stake her political future on this issue.
It will be more important for her to rally her increasingly frightened fellow citizens than to please the hyper-progressives of her party.