Critics are targeting Montreal city officials for increasing the size of the Montreal Police Department’s budget for 2023 by hundreds of millions of dollars.
City of Montreal Police Department (SPVM) is getting a 2023 budget of $787 million, a record amount.
This is $63 million more than budgeted for in 2022, or an increase of 8.7 percent.
“[A]$63 million increase is the largest budget increase for the police in Montreal’s history. It’s a complete travesty of what other large cities in Canada are doing,” said Concordia, who studies police operations across Canada. Ted Rutland, a professor at the university, told Global News.
Rutland argues that the size of the SPVM budget needs to be reined in and that some of the money should be reallocated to community policing.
“Eighty percent of 9-1-1 calls have nothing to do with a crime. They are calling for social assistance. And these types of calls are best answered by a citizen response team,” Rutland said.
Taxes, spending in the Montreal 2023 budget
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Others who work with racialized communities agree that police working closely with the public helps prevent crime.
“Crime affects everyone and I think it takes an entire community to be able to find solutions,” Kemba Mitchell, a community, youth and social justice advocate, told Global News.
Violent crime involving guns and gangs has increased in Montreal in recent years, according to a 2021 SPVM police report.
Montreal city officials defend the budget increase, much of it attributed to the planned hiring of more officers next year.
“Most of the amount is the result of financial support we’ve received from the provincial government to hire more policemen,” Dominique Olivier, chair of Montreal’s executive committee, told Global News.
Working together with community groups as a crime prevention tool is on the radar of incoming SPVM chief, Fadi Daghar.
SPVM’s media team sent an email to Global News, declining to comment on its budget until officials appear before Montreal’s Finance Commission, scheduled for December 6.
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