The Montreal police union denounces the downsizing in the metropolis, which forces officers to work compulsory overtime, while the administration of Mayor Valérie Plante pledged last year to hire 250 additional police officers in a year.
Posted at 3:37 p.m.
In a letter sent to the mayor on Monday, the Montreal Police Brotherhood (FPPM) says there are 72 fewer police officers now at the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) than in November 2021, when Mme Plante made his commitment to hiring.
“According to our records, when you were hired ten months ago, 4,410 police officers were working at the SPVM. Still according to our records, on August 15, there were 4,338 police officers at the SPVM, ”wrote the president of the FPPM, Yves Francœur.
According to him, the police force is insufficient to do their job well.
Mr. Francœur regrets that the creation of new units by the Plante administration in recent months, in particular to combat armed violence to tackle firearms trafficking, has meant the displacement of police officers from neighborhood police stations, “throwing unsustainable pressure on the gendarmerie, which is essential to dissuasive police visibility and the feeling of security of the population, in free fall”.
Compulsory overtime
“Faced with the obvious reduction in patrol staff, our members are surprised to hear you affirm that the SPVM has enough resources, while the police officers are buried in compulsory overtime which they no longer want”, deplores the chief union.
According to the FPPM, the lack of concrete support from the Plante administration for the police has resulted in an increase in resignations at the SPVM.
“For the first eight months of 2022 alone, we are at 40 resignations while there were 29 for the whole of 2019, and it was previously a marginal phenomenon”, indicates Yves Francœur.
In an interview, he gives two examples: in a neighborhood station (PDQ) located in a hot sector, there were 15 patrollers per shift in 2017, while there are only eight or nine left in 2022 “In another PDQ, we had 13 patrollers per shift in 2020, we have seven in 2022,” he adds.
“For more than a year, when it is mentioned to the city and the SPVM that units are on the verge of exhaustion, we are told that it is the same everywhere, it no longer makes sense,” s’ he protests.
“Young police officers from other police forces in Quebec no longer leave their service to go to Montreal for two reasons: because rents and house prices are very high, and because there are a lot of shootings and police who get shot.”
The Leader of the Opposition at City Hall, Aref Salem, questioned Mayor Plante on this subject Monday, during the city council meeting.
“It means that we are undressing Paul to dress Jean,” denounced Mr. Salem. “What’s the point of bragging about hiring if since Projet Montréal’s re-election, these hirings are lower than the number of departures?” »
“There is not a week in Montreal where there is no shooting, not a week without there being dead or wounded. »
229 hires
To these arguments, Valérie Plante responded by saying that there had been 229 police hires since November 2021.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The Mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante
She recalls that last June, the interim head of the SPVM, Sophie Roy, had assured the Commission de la sécurité publique that the police force was sufficient.
The mayor took the opportunity to praise the quality of the services offered by the SPVM, which solves 92% of the crimes referred to it, she said.
The head of public security on the executive committee, Alain Vaillancourt, for his part accused the opposition of carrying out a “campaign of fear” and of denigrating the work of the police.
These remarks made the opposition councilor Abdelhaq Sari jump, who claimed that the councilors of Ensemble Montreal had never denigrated municipal employees.
“They are doing a great job, but they are fed up! “, he dropped.