It is “unacceptable” that criminal groups use young people to do their dirty work, reiterated Thursday morning the Minister of Public Security, François Bonnardel.
In a press scrum Thursday morning, he announced that he would meet with the two main police forces in Quebec — the Sûreté du Québec and the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal — during the day to provide a portrait of the situation and decide what to do.
The last few weeks have been eventful, marked in particular by the arrest of teenagers including a group of seven minors who are allegedly involved in several violent crimes, including arson, firearm discharges and extortion. The day before, a 15-year-old teenager was arrested for an arson attack in a Montreal restaurant, which had already been targeted shortly before. The trail of extortion from restaurateurs is being examined, as is the case for last week’s fire in a heritage building in Old Montreal, in which a mother and her seven-year-old daughter perished.
At the end of September, Quebec was also shocked to learn that a 14-year-old boy was found dead near the hideout of the Hells Angels school club in Frampton, in Beauce.
The Parti Québécois (PQ) also put the issue of youth crime back in the spotlight by calling on Wednesday evening for the holding of a parliamentary commission on the increase in armed violence and the recruitment of young people by criminal gangs. He wants to hear from various experts.
“A serious societal issue,” commented PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon on Thursday morning.
“Our young people, particularly in the Montreal region, are literally serving as cannon fodder in a war between criminalized groups. »
The PQ leader insists that he notably requested more police officers and the return of the SPVM community prevention squad, but that the CAQ underestimates and trivializes the seriousness of the situation. Minister Bonnardel’s approach is “passive. »
“We need a lot more resources to deal with this wave,” added the chief, recalling the work accomplished by the Carcajou squad to tackle the biker war in Quebec in the 1990s.
Questioned shortly after, the minister defended himself: “we did not sit idly by. »
We have been asked for more police officers, then we will train more police officers, he said in reference to the increased cohorts of the National Police Academy.
That being said, the minister declared that “there is a balance to be found between prevention and repression,” he said.
He affirms that Public Security supports police forces who seek to “bring young people back on the right path”, because some slip up and decide to start “petty crime” which eventually becomes serious crime, he explained. . The minister says that a parliamentary commission can take up the issue, but that what is important “is the work on the ground”, particularly in schools.
As for Carcajou, he believes that there has been a paradigm shift since the days of the biker wars in Quebec. “Organized crime” has become “disorganized” in the sense that hierarchical structures and roles are now much more decentralized, with criminalized young people who do not respect previous codes. So it became much more difficult for the police, he said.
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