CALEB NICKERSON
MRC PONTIAC Dec. 9, 2020
Over the last year, local police have been doing their best to educate the public on various fraud schemes and cracking down on truckers flouting the law, according to the latest public safety report presented at the MRC council meeting on Nov. 25.
At the meeting, committee president and Rapides des Joachims Mayor Jim Gibson gave the highlights of the annual stats. In a follow up interview with THE EQUITY, he said that every year the mayors provide their priorities for law enforcement to police.
“Each year they ask us, all the municipalities, as to what we would like a priority for them to look for [during] the next year,” he said. “They take the majority, so the majority [for 2019/20] would have been the fraud, talking to seniors, and the trucks.
“The number one priority they had from the municipalities was . . .
to go and talk to the seniors regarding different things that are going on,” he continued. “They spoke to them quite a bit about different fraud systems that are going on and brought them up to date on that.”
Over the course of the previous reporting period, which extends from April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020, officer from the local Sûreté du Québec (SQ) detachment met with the municipal directors general 113 times and another 63 times with mayors, on top of their outreach with seniors populations.
Gibson said that many regions also had issues with large trucks on their roads.
“The trucks were an issue in some municipalities, barreling through their towns and stuff but they had a crackdown with that,” he said.
Over the course of the year-long period, officers pulled over 98 trucks and issued 54 tickets for various offences such as speeding or using a cell phone while driving.
According to SQ Sgt. Martin Parent, the enforcement priorities for the current year (April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021) are cannabis usage among minors and accidents along Hwy. 148 in specific trouble areas.
He said that in they recovered just over 6,000 cannabis plants in the MRC over the last reporting period, which is actually down from previous years.
“When people call us, we do investigate and we have good results,” he said, noting that they coordinate with the military to use their helicopter to locate grow-ops at least once a season. “Usually we have one day of flight, or if we’re lucky we have two days of flight. We do make sure to pinpoint some places to go … we don’t go randomly.”
Gibson said that the public should be reminded that growing cannabis is prohibited by provincial authorities, adding that those caught with four or less plants, the limit set by the federal government, will receive a fine but any more than that will result in criminal charges.
Parent went over the full report in detail, pointing out that the number of fatal collisions had grown significantly this reporting period, to five compared to previous averages of around two. He added that over that same period, the number of collisions resulting in serious injuries had decreased to two, compared to approximately four in previous years.
Sexual assaults remained steady compared to previous years at 14, but assaults saw a slight increase to 111 from an average of around 90. Parent said that this was likely due to an increase in reports being filed.
“[What] we saw last year is whenever a person files a complaint against another person, that other person files a complaint to the other guy,” he explained. “It’s once a person gets charged, the other person charges the person who just charged them … that’s the reason it went up from last year.”
Break and enters saw a significant decrease from previous years, dropping to 39 compared to a previous average of around 70.
“The main reason is … we arrested two [people] for break and entry,” he said. “Another reason could be the floods. At the beginning of the year of 2019, in April it was the floods, there were a lot of cops here, people couldn’t travel as they wanted … [that] could be an answer.”
Gibson added that another important crackdown that the local police branch made was on year-round residents keeping their out-of-province license plates. This was an important issue for Gibson’s municipality as well as several others with large cottaging communities.
“In Swisha it was seven people taken to court and they were successful in having five of them switch over to Quebec plates and the other two they’re going to follow up on that,” he said.
“The municipalities lose money because of that,” he continued. “If you’re registered with your plates, then the Quebec government gives so much money based on the citizens in that municipality. So these people are getting the benefits of the town, but they’re … not registered, so we lose money.”
Parent added that the local branch had made an effort to step of parking enforcement during the Shawville Fair weekend and also during the winter months, at the request of the municipalities. They recorded 111 traffic infractions over this reporting period compared to a previous average of around 11.
The public safety committee officially meets four times a year and is made up of eight mayors, Warden Jane Toller and two representatives from the SQ.
