The director of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) will step down before the end of his term, according to information confirmed by The duty.
Appointed in November 2018 at the head of the SPVM, Sylvain Caron had obtained a five-year mandate which was to end at the end of 2023. According to the information obtained, Sylvain Caron would leave his position for personal reasons and not because of a disagreement with the administration at City Hall.
During his tenure, Sylvain Caron notably implemented an arrest policy after a report revealed systemic biases by police officers against minorities. In December 2020, he also set up a squad dedicated to the fight against arms trafficking while the metropolis was facing an outbreak of violence.
Neighborhood stations
In recent months, however, Mr. Caron has had some disagreements with the administration. On January 6, during the study of the City’s budget by the Finance Commission, he indicated that he was considering closing neighborhood stations for budgetary reasons. Mayor Valérie Plante, however, ruled out this possibility, saying that no formal request for a merger of positions had been filed by the SPVM.
A press conference is scheduled for Tuesday morning with the chief of police and the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante.
Sylvain Caron succeeded Martin Prud’homme, who was temporarily appointed head of the SPVM in 2017 following the suspension of former director Philippe Pichet. Before joining the SPVM in the spring of 2018, Sylvain Caron held the position of Deputy Director at the Sûreté du Québec (SQ). Previously, he headed the Sorel-Tracy police department from 1981 to 2002.
For the opposition to the town hall, the hasty departure of Sylvain Caron demonstrates that the Plante administration has “lost control of what is happening at the SPVM”. “Refusal to hire the promised 250 new police officers, surprise elimination of neighborhood police stations, changing positions on the body camera project, defunding of the SPVM, police officers on the edge of the abyss: one need only take stock of the past year to see how the administration has failed to maintain good communications and good relations with its police department and its chief,” commented the interim chief of Ensemble Montreal, Aref Salem.
According to him, it is worrying to see the chief of police leave his post while the metropolis is going through a major crisis in terms of violence.
Stability regained
Former SPVM inspector Guy Ryan believes that Sylvain Caron has succeeded in bringing some stability to the SPVM after years of “storm”. “The machine had slipped for a few years. And you know, the credibility of a police department is not built by shouting scissors. It takes years for people to trust the police department, he said. But the SPVM was a big boat for him. He still came from a small police force which was Sorel-Tracy before,” he said.
Montreal is still grappling with problems of violence, but according to the ex-policeman, Sylvain Caron “took the bull by the horns” in this file by creating special units.
The president of the Brotherhood of Montreal police officers, Yves Francœur, also praised Mr. Caron’s contribution to the stability of the SPVM and underlined “the spirit of collaboration that he demonstrated”. “He will have been present at a pivotal moment,” said Mr. Francoeur in a statement sent to the media.
The director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), Fo Niemi, for his part, underlined the commitment of Sylvain Caron for the well-being of the population during the pandemic.
However, Mr. Niemi believes that the SPVM’s efforts to deal with human rights issues and the fight against racial profiling have been “modest” and have not yielded the expected results. “We hope that the reforms undertaken under his reign will enable his successor to meet these challenges with a better orientation of community policing, and a more lively consultation with the components of the population in all its diversity”, he specified. by email.