SPVM: the new leader announces a large household

Archival Photo, QMI Agency

Éric Thibault

Thursday, 25 January, 2018 22:25

UPDATE
Thursday, 25 January, 2018 22:28

Look at this article

The new boss of the Montreal police has begun his grand household, Thursday night, announcing the elimination of seven positions of the high-ranking officers and the return of a team in which you will be able to have confidence” in the internal affairs.

This is the message that Martin Prud’homme has sent its troops in an e-mail which The Newspaper was able to take knowledge.

Arrived in the office for a month and a half, the acting chief imposed a slimming diet to the senior management of the SPVM in abolishing outright the grade of assistant director.

Philip Pitcher and the other predecessors of Martin Prud’homme were supported by a team of 11 high-ranking officers, with three associate editors and eight assistant directors.

Now, the chief would be surrounded by four deputy directors. Point. So these are the seven posts of senior officers, paid approximately $ 200,000 per year, which will be eliminated. The officers who occupy these functions will need to resolve in a demotion.

Stop the wrangling

In addition, Martin Prud’homme — which has left his post at the directorate-general of the Sûreté du Québec at the request of the government, on 6 December, to take over as head of the SPVM for one year — aims to put an end to the “chicanery” in the house in proposing a new organizational structure.

The SPVM will be managed in four major directions of the administrative conducted by many high-ranking officers: criminal investigations, police, corporate services, and finally, to the professional standards.

The police and investigations were up to now grouped together under the same umbrella administrative. Their rivalries and wars of power have been criticized by their new boss, in an interview to the Newspaper at the end of December.

Mr. Prud’homme had made it clear that he wanted to quickly solve the “major issues” with his brigade to die of internal affairs, undermined by allegations of fabrication of evidence revealed by our survey in the winter of 2017.

This scandal had prompted the minister of public Safety, Martin Coiteux, to entrust all internal investigations involving police officers of the SPVM in a mixed team formed by members of the SQ and several municipal police forces. And then, half-a-dozen executives have been suspended while they themselves have been put under investigation.

He promised “an effective team in which you will be able to have confidence” in its message to its more than 4,000 police officers yesterday.

“We must return to the primary mission of the police service, the field. If I can identify executive positions, and recover the police to bring them back on the field, this is what I’ll do,” he said a week ago at the Montreal city hall during the presentation of the annual budget of the police force.