When the police take over from the brigadiers

While Montreal is trying to increase its police force, some officers must ensure the safety of children crossing the streets near schools because it is difficult to recruit school crossing guards.

Marie-Eve Morasse
The Press

In the streets of the metropolis, it is not uncommon to see a policeman in uniform crossing children on their way to school or returning from it. It’s because the shortage of school crossing guards affects all neighborhood positions in Montreal, says Marc Babin, president of the Montreal crossing guards union.

“When there are no supernumeraries, we cannot replace the permanent staff member who has left, so automatically we put a police officer in place of the brigadier,” explains Mr. Babin.

Who are these agents called to replace the brigadiers? “These are police officers that we have to remove from responding to calls to place them there,” explains agent Manuel Couture, spokesperson for the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).

Agent Couture recalls that the passage of schoolchildren is “a priority” for the SPVM.

If a permanent crossing guard must be absent, a replacement is called upon. However, supernumerary crossing guards, there are hardly any left, says the president of the Montreal crossing guards union. He cites the example of the Ahuntsic district, in the north of Montreal, which has none to replace one or the other of the 38 brigadiers.

This is where the SPVM police officers are called in for reinforcement. Last Monday, for example, five intersections of neighborhood station 35, in La Petite-Patrie, were without crossing guards, which mobilized as many police officers.

How many hours per year do SPVM police officers devote to this task? “It’s very difficult to break down a number of hours,” said Manuel Couture, spokesperson for the SPVM.

He nevertheless recognizes that “the citizen who sees this does not understand why a police officer makes the students cross”.

At the City of Montreal, it is indicated that efforts to “intensive recruitment” of crossing guards are continuing.

The City employs 565 crossing guards. “Of this number, 533 are able to work (32 on sick leave, leave, etc.). As for the allocation of resources in the field and operational supervision, this is the responsibility of the SPVM,” writes Gonzalo Nunez, public relations officer for the City of Montreal.

A salary of $20 per hour

The president of the Montreal crossing guards union, Marc Babin, says he finds the comparison between a crossing guard’s salary and that of a police officer doing the same job “comical”.

“The crossing guards earn $20.01 an hour. Of course, a policeman earns a lot more,” he laughs. Members of his union are often in their 60s, 70s or even 80s, he says.

The majority of the brigadiers, explains Mr. Babin, work 20 hours per week, at the rate of approximately four hours per day, distributed in the morning, noon and evening.

Excluding school holidays, a crossing guard earns approximately $16,000 per year. Due to the shortage, crossing guards obtain their tenure after as little as two months of work.

This is the Montreal salary.

In some places, such as Boisbriand, in the Laurentians, it is announced these days that they are looking for crossing guards paid $29.58/h, “including a 15% increase for fringe benefits”.

In Laval, too, police are sometimes called in to get children to cross at one or other of the city’s 86 school crossings.

“It is possible that, in an emergency situation, during which a crossing guard could not move to his crossing and that no reserve crossing guard could also go there, a police presence would be requested on the scene. said Officer Erika Landry of the Laval Police Department.

In Longueuil, where we need 104 school crossing guards, we say we have “mostly” the necessary staff. If a crossing guard is missing in a place, it is the “regulatory officers” who take over, “but it can happen that police officers are also assigned there”, we are told at the Service de police de l’ agglomeration of Longueuil.