Response times to the SPVQ: Mayor Bruno Marchand “doesn’t like it”

Paris | Bruno Marchand did not like learning that his police service (SPVQ) takes on average twice as long as other police forces before arriving on site after emergency calls.

“There’s no one who likes it. There is no one who says that it is a good idea that we have examples where we do not reach the targets,” admitted the mayor of Quebec, yesterday, from Paris, where he is finishing today. today its European mission.

Stating that he himself did not know this statistic before the publication of the article Journal, Mr. Marchand assured “that we are working on that. We will discuss it and we will find solutions.”

The mayor, however, did not want to make a link between this file and that of the negotiations he is currently leading with the Minister of Public Security, François Bonnardel, with a view to providing the Quebec City Police Service (SPVQ) more resources to fight violent crime. “I will not confuse the two files,” he warned. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a connection at all. But here, I don’t use that to pursue our requests.”

Bruno Marchand also made the same distancing from the talks that the City is currently conducting with the Brotherhood of Police Officers of Quebec City to renew their employment contract which expired more than nine months ago. According to him, “the negotiation issues are not about these elements. We want to see them come to fruition as quickly as possible with the best agreement.”

“No bad faith”

In his report yesterday, The Journal revealed that it took almost two years to get its hands on the priority intervention deadlines of the SPVQ. The Quebec police initially refused to transmit this data, citing security reasons. After a mediation process under the aegis of the Commission for Access to Information, our Investigation Office recently obtained the requested statistics.

Does the mayor of Quebec therefore believe that there is an issue of transparency at the SPVQ? “There are elements on which I will want to discuss with the chief [de police]see his understanding and let us talk about it. We will take the time to discuss it. There is no bad faith on the part of the Police Department to hide information,” he assured.

The latter then insisted that his administration “has done more with open data than has ever been done. This does not call into question our promises and all the actions taken towards that end.”