Nearly a year after the tabling of the green paper on the reality of policing in Quebec, the main recommendations of the report remain on the back burner, and the only bill that resulted from it, paralyzed in the National Assembly. But there is no reason to lose hope, say those who produced the document.
“If previous governments have been comforted in indifference, ours has chosen to act instead”, launched in December 2019 the Minister of Public Security, Geneviève Guilbault. A year later, in May 2021, the members of the Advisory Committee on Police Reality (ACRP) tabled a 500-page report, which contained 138 recommendations to modernize police services in Quebec.
As soon as the report was tabled, Minister Guilbault dismissed its two main recommendations. “For the moment, there is nothing that will move in the short or medium term,” she said about the overhaul of the police map and the revision of the mandate of the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC).
The elected official finally presented, on December 8, 2021, Bill 18 “amending various provisions in terms of public security and enacting the Act to help find missing persons”. Five months later, the legislative text remained there, at the stage of presentation.
“He must be called by the leader of the government,” replied Minister Guilbault’s press attaché, Louis-Julien Dufresne, when The duty asked him why the bill had not gone through.
The Committee on Institutions, responsible for studying Bill 18, has sat half as often as the Committee on Health and Social Services, or the Committee on Culture and Education, since January. It did not, for example, meet once in March. Mr. Dufresne nevertheless mentions his congestion. “There are many, many bills at the moment. There is a traffic jam”, he declared, not without mentioning that “it is not only through the bill that we are making progress”.
Patience for the missing
When Bill 18 was tabled, Minister Guilbault mentioned the communication problems that affected the search for the Norah sisters and Romy Carpentier in July 2020 in Saint-Apollinaire. “And with what we put [dans le projet de loi]more information will be available more quickly,” she said.
Until the legislative text becomes law, the Ministry of Public Security claims to have acted to respond to a recommendation in the green paper that a “coordination unit devoted to disappearances” be created and maintained at the Sûreté du Québec. .
“Details will be announced in due course,” publicist Louise Quintin wrote, noting that the most recent budget “confirmed the significant increase in support for research coordination efforts devoted to disappearances and abductions.”
The coordinator of the CCRP, Bernard Sévigny, advocates patience before the arrival of changes in this area. “Do I have to be indignant at this moment because there is a missing person and we are not doing what we are proposing? I’m not going there at this time,” he said. “We knew very well that it was going to take a few years. »
Of “hope” for change
” There is hope ! “he launches elsewhere in an interview, when The duty asks him how he assesses this exercise, a year later. In his opinion, the tabling of Bill 18 alone proves that “the will is there” in the government to change things. “For the rest, it would have to be done quickly. But it’s the end that we don’t control, ”he says.
Mr. Sévigny adds that he filed the report and “moved on to something else”. From the outside, therefore, he is careful not to “pass judgment” on the work done since the filing of the green book, not knowing if the Ministry of Public Security has launched internal projects.
His ex-colleague Louis Côté says he has “confidence [dans le fait] that things are going to happen”. He points out that the municipal elections in the fall, and then the pandemic, may have delayed the implementation of the recommendations. “We should not expect this to be resolved tomorrow morning,” he said, for example, about the overhaul of the police map.
The CPRC, of which he was a member as a former officer of the Sûreté du Québec, recommended increasing the number of police forces from 31 to 13. The proposal asked to be “documented and quantified” and was not going to materialize “in the short term”, said Mme Guilbault when submitting the green paper. A year later, the Ministry of Public Security says it intends to “continue this work on a longer-term schedule,” said publicist Louise Quintin.
Status quo on UPAC?
The green paper on the police also recommended the integration of the UPAC into a squad specializing in cybercrime and economic crimes, to put an end to working in isolation and promote the pooling of expertise. On this subject, the reflection “remains the same”, writes Mme quintin.
“The government considers that [l’UPAC a] in hand the necessary tools to carry out its mission. There is therefore no intention to modify the current form of the latter at this time,” she wrote.
The director general of the Association of Quebec Police Directors (ADPQ), Didier Deramond, nevertheless judges that Minister Guilbault did not reject the recommendation aimed at UPAC. “She gave us the green light to work on the issue,” he says.
The ADPQ seeks to establish a partnership with private actors to better fight against cybercrime or high-level financial fraud. This “not simple” file, which it is piloting in concert with the Sûreté du Québec, is “a priority”, underlines Mr. Deramond. “It’s progressing, I can tell you that it’s progressing”, he underlines, specifying that his teams work “in the shadows”.
His association had also called for the creation of a national program to protect the mental health of police officers. This was found in the green paper, which granted a total of seven recommendations to the mental health file.
To date, Quebec has set aside $2.9 million over five years to “support police officers in psychological distress”, confirms the Ministry of Public Security.
Arrests
The CCRP had also noted the importance of “collecting racial data” on people arrested by the police. The ministry says it is working on it and “financially supporting” police forces that wish to document their practices.
Bill 18 also provided for expanding the minister’s power so that she could establish guidelines “to frame police arrest more rigorously,” notes Ms.me quintin.
In August 2020, Minister Guilbault proposed guidelines to regulate police arrests – guidelines that the police were not forced to comply with. Have these, incorporated into the Guide to Police Practices, really been applied by police forces? ” The [ministère] does not have precise data on this subject, ”replied Mr.me quintin.