Sophie Demers
Local Journalism Initiative 

MRC PONTIAC – The MRC Pontiac’s public safety committee released its annual report on October 18 which showed a drastic increase in impaired driving incidents; 56 in 2022-2023 compared to 38 in 2021-2022 and 34 in 2020-2021.

The report gathered policing related data from across the Pontiac territory from April 2022 to March 2023. During this period, the MRC Pontiac’s Public Safety Committee (PSC) participated in various community events such as Bouffe Pontiac’s food drive, Christmas basket distribution, and monitoring Halloween trick or treating. They also organized presentations and various prevention activities at community centers and schools; one for child safety, one for senior fraud prevention and 7 alcohol and drug prevention activities.

There was a total of 2,430 road interventions and 313 collisions in 2022-2023; none were fatal and 4 resulted in serious injuries. There were 1,052 road patrols that took place, 398 of which were between 3pm and midnight. Off-road patrols (on ATVs, boats and snowmobiles) totaled 12. Bylaw offenses were lower than usual in 2022-2023; 73 offenses compared to 87 in 2021-2022 and 143 in 2020-2021.

In terms of crime, there were 272 crimes committed against persons, which includes 23 sexual assault crimes and 145 assault crimes. These numbers have steadily increased over the years.

Property crimes totaled 193, with fraud (49) and breaking and entering (40) as the most frequent incidents.

Marc Tessier, Sûreté du Quebec communications officer, said there could be a variety of reasons why certain types of offenses increase or decrease: pandemic changes, more patrols in an area or an increase in population.