By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
Mayors in several Brome-Missisquoi municipalities are facing unpleasant budget decisions after learning the cost of Sureté du Québec (SQ) service for 2025. In Brome Lake, the bill the municipality received was about 11 per cent higher than last year, Mayor Richard Burcombe told the BCN; in Sutton, the increase was just under 10 per cent, and in Farnham, nine per cent. Farnham mayor Patrick Melchior told the BCN previous year-on-year increases were about five per cent.
Half of the SQ’s estimated $850-million annual budget is paid by municipalities, using a formula based on each town’s population, tax base and the planned number of police officers serving the region. The tax base itself is calculated based on property values, which have shot up in Brome-Missisquoi in recent years – particularly in Brome Lake, which saw an increase of over 50 per cent in its most recent tax roll. In that light, Burcombe said, the increase “is not really surprising.”
“We’re going to reduce the [property tax rate], but we’re still going to have to make up the $269,000 [SQ fee increase],” he added. “We’re paying for the towns that have a smaller tax base but a higher workload due to certain needs.”
Burcombe pointed out that municipalities in the region are paying a higher cost for fewer police officers than in recent years. “It was probably at the beginning of this year, we lost three [SQ] patrol people,” he said. “I know salaries have gone up, but this is an increase [in the service fee] while services are being cut. … If there’s a serious incident, the [local] SQ can call on [their counterparts in] Haute-Yamaska or Waterloo or on the highway patrol, but for things like visibility and speeding, it’s as if they don’t exist.”
“They are reducing the number of officers, but at the same time, there’s a growing population, more traffic, longer patrol routes, more problems like homelessness and mental health. The equation isn’t working,” said Melchior, who is also prefect of the MRC of Brome-Missisquoi. “We have passed resolutions, tried to talk with [the Ministry of Public Safety], they have said they would review service in 2026 but other than that we haven’t had any echoes.”
Burcombe’s counterpart in Sutton, Robert Benoit, said the town’s budgetary breathing room has been “almost erased” by the increase in SQ costs, which will have to be borne by taxpayers. “We have to defend that to citizens, saying, ‘We don’t have the choice.’” He acknowledged that the impact on taxes and other town services won’t be fully clear until the budget comes out next month.
There is no procedure in place for municipalities to contest their SQ bill. The Union des municipalités du Québec (UMQ) has written an open letter calling on the province to “take measures to reduce the impact” of the increased costs. Joé Deslauriers is the mayor of Saint-Donat in the Mauricie region and the head of the UMQ local municipalities caucus. “More than 30 municipalities have had increases of over 20 per cent and more than 150 have had at least 10 per cent. In Saint-Donat, the bill went up by 15 per cent and we have two fewer police officers,” he said. “I’m not putting in doubt the workload of a police officer, I’m not putting in doubt the new collective agreement or the increase in costs, but we need more predictability.”
According to Deslauriers, 1,040 municipalities in the province rely on the SQ for policing. All of the municipalities in Brome-Missisquoi are on this list, with the exception of Bromont, which has its own police service. Brome Lake dismantled its police service in 2002. Although reviving it would end the town’s reliance on the SQ, Burcombe said that would be easier said than done. “There’s a cost that comes with having your own police service. It would be a whole different ballgame, we’d have to build a police station, we’d have the whole problem of recruitment…and according to the Police Act, we don’t have a large enough population to have our own police. It’s not as easy as just saying, ‘Bring back the police.’”