The head of Projet Montréal, Valérie Plante, promises to hire 250 police officers by the end of 2022, when public safety issues in the metropolis are of concern to many voters.
Of this number, 80 officers from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) will be hired by the end of January, if its formation is brought to power this Sunday, Ms. Plante promised Tuesday afternoon at a conference. press conference held at his party’s campaign offices in the city center. These 250 added police officers would take into account annual retirements to represent a net addition in terms of new employees in the police force, the candidate for mayor later clarified. “We want to speed up hiring,” she said.
This electoral promise echoes that of the leader of Ensemble Montréal, Denis Coderre, who has also argued in recent weeks that he believes at least 250 police officers are missing in Montreal so that the SPVM can reach the maximum authorized staff. , or 4,800 police officers. He also raised the possibility of raising this threshold to 5,000, at a time when the number of shootings is on the rise in the metropolis.
“In the end, what is important for public safety is that as and when the needs arise, we have increased the squads and increased the available resources. […] For us, it is not fair to add police officers without saying where they are going to go, ”said Ms. Plante, thus arguing that her public safety plan is“ more solid ”than that of her opponent. “We do not take a number out of our hat,” she continued, arguing that the target of 250 new police officers was established in consultation with the SPVM.
In the presence of her candidate Dominique Ollivier, Ms. Plante also presented on Tuesday the other commitments that she wishes to materialize in the first 100 days of her possible mandate. These relate in particular to housing, the protection of the French language and the fight against systemic racism. The head of Projet Montréal also reiterated her commitment to limit the increase in property taxes to 2% in 2022.
Further details will follow.