BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1019 Report

In the last month, all municipalities in the region adopted their budgets for the current year. And just about all recorded increases in expenses for 2024. Among those hikes is a substantial increase is the price of police services provided by the Sûreté du Québec. But there is one thing that the financial documents do not show: As the costs for police services continue to go up, the amount of service is about to go down.

A total of 131 SQ officers are assigned to this region. How many are on duty at any given time, including the number who patrol the streets of the region, varies according to an internal schedule. That overall number, however, is about to drop by seven to 124, according to Patrick Bousez, prefect of the MRC of Vaudreuil-Soulanges. And that means only one thing, the amount of police coverage in this region is going to be less – but the bill will not be lowered.

“This angers me,” said a frustrated Guy Pilon, mayor of Vaudreuil-Dorion, the largest municipality in the territory that pays the biggest slice of the MRC’s policing bill. “It’s illogical.”

“We control nothing,” Pilon said, referring to the towns that shoulder the costs. “We just get the bill.”

See SQ COSTS, Page 2.

SQ COSTS: Bill for policing keeps rising year after year

From Page 1.

Municipalities have no control on the policing cost, Pilon explained. “All we have to do is shut up and pay.”

He was informed of the pending cuts by MRC officials.

Bousez said the new arrangement is part of a 10-year agreement signed with Quebec’s Public Security Ministry, which negotiated the deal with the SQ administration and the Union des municipalités du Québec. It was based on a study of a number of factors, including crime rates in the various regions.

What is the most difficult to accept, Bousez said, is that while Vaudreuil-Soulanges will see its police force trimmed, the neighbouring MRC of Beauharnois-Salaberry will see its numbers of officers increase without seeing its cost go up.

“We are not happy,” Bousez said. “No one in the region is happy.”

It’s a situation that all the region’s municipalities are struggling with, Pilon said, as costs for the provincial police service continue to rise year after year.

In Vaudrueil-Dorion, the bill for the SQ in 2024 will hit $7.25 million, up almost nine per cent from the $6.6 million in 2023. In St. Lazare, SQ costs are up 6.55 per cent this year. In Hudson, policing costs are up 5.5 per cent, hitting $1.93 million this year.

In 2022, Vaudreuil-Soulanges was charged $30.2 million for SQ services, according to data obtained by The 1019 Report from the Ministry of Public Security.

Pilon said cities and towns across the province who had their own municipal forces were sold a bill of goods when they were forced to disband their local policing services in favour of SQ services in 2003.

“They sold us smoke, saying it would cost us less,” Pilon said, recalling how the transition was presented two decades ago.

Municipalities were told they would receive the same level of service at a lesser cost, he said. Today, most towns have seen a steady rise in the cost of the SQ and have had to hire public security contractors to provide a presence in parks and to make sure everything from dog bylaws to parking restrictions are enforced – services the SQ does not provide.

The cost of the SQ assessed the MRC of Vaudreuil-Soulanges is set by the provincial government. It is determined by a formula based on property valuations, which provides for the so-called richest regions to pay more. As such, MRCs like Vaudreuil-Soulanges end up footing more of the provincial bill to reduce the financial burden of the SQ on other, less affluent regions.

This formula also includes a provision whereby MRCs that pay the most receive a partial reimbursement. This calculation, however, has been the focus of legal action of late. In 2021, the MRC passed a resolution to change this calculation method. In response, four towns in the region – Vaudreuil-Dorion, Pincourt, St. Zotique and Les Coteaux – challenged this new approach. Last year, the court upheld the new method.

The ruling did not, however, outline how the redistribution of the reimbursements be applied. Now, the town of Hudson is taking issue with the MRCs latest approach. In response, the MRC has launched an internal review of its billing practices.