By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

The SPVM’s crime statistics are not specific enough, in that the numbers are for a station’s entire coverage area rather than individual municipalities, Montreal West Councillor Lauren Small-Pennefather says.

Station 9’s coverage area includes Montreal West, Côte St. Luc, Hampstead and, a few years ago, was expanded to include NDG. Small-Pennefather has brought up the specificity issue on previous occasions as well.

“It’s always very difficult for us to be able to distill exactly what is specific to Montreal West,” she said last week.

The councillor told The Suburban after the council meeting that the lack of specific numbers for cities is “problematic.

“This comes from the top, saying they won’t do it anymore. They say it’s not cost-effective or efficient for them to have to distill those numbers.”

At the June 25 meeting, the councillor cited the SPVM’s annual report, saying that for Station 9’s entire coverage area, property crimes were up 24.5 percent for 2023, “versus the previous five years, and there was an increase of car thefts of over 100 percent.

“Crimes against persons are also up 29.4 percent, and in the same five-year period, there was a slight decrease in homicides,” she added. “Of course, our biggest issue in Montreal West is with regards to stolen vehicles, and if you’ve been watching the news, you probably have seen that there are a number of very sophisticated theft rings that were [the subject of] significant arrests by the police.”

Small-Pennefather also said she is hopeful about legislation to reduce car thefts, such as harsher penalties for perpetrators; as well as measures by car manufacturers to decrease theft.

The councillor told The Suburban that the town does know, based on information from Montreal West Public Security and the police, that “our numbers are smaller, but we’re just a few streets, and if someone gets a car stolen and then another car is stolen [in another area of the town],” the word gets around and much concern is expressed by residents.

Small-Pennefather revealed that her own vehicle was stolen from her driveway, just before the COVID pandemic began.

“You feel violated if something is stolen from you, but as I said, a lot of this has to do with federal jurisdiction improving the laws, and they have now cracked down on a number of rings.” n