Progressive Party Projet Montreal Focuses Funding on Police instead of Community Groups

The city’s municipal party Projet Montreal had progressive roots, but since they took power in 2017, approved a historical increase of the police budget by $45 million in 2022.

None of these policies are progressive, so has Projet Montreal strayed from its beginning, and what are the progressive roots it maintains?

Last election saw the return of former mayor Denis Coderre, causing Projet Montreal to once again campaign head-to-head against Coderre’s party Ensemble Montreal. Ensemble campaigned on fear, citing that crime was on the rise and Ensemble could be the party to reduce crime in the city.

Coderre had a few occasions where he was loose with the truth, once stating that Montreal had experienced "400 shootouts," when discussing gun violence. This is not true.

If we include SPVM statistics from 2018, 2019 and 2020, there were a total of 236 incidents where a firearm was discharged. Associate professor at Concordia University Ted Rutland says violence has not increased in the city and that figures from 2021 show a decrease. 

Rutland says that Projet Montreal came out in front in the elections knowing that Coderre would campaign on fear and that they had a “balanced approach to public security”.

Homelessness doubled in Montreal during the pandemic, with other major Canadian cities reporting a similar uptick. Tent cities started popping up as many shelters experienced COVID outbreaks. Projet Montreal took a harsh approach, having the police demolish multiple tent cities during their last term.

SPVM patrol officers are called more than 40 times a day to respond to situations involving the homeless. More than half of these interventions take place downtown. (percentage on screen: 50-60%)

Public demand for defunding the police, and reallocating resources to organizations like the ISWP has been increasing. In 2020, 73% of Montrealers were in support of reducing SPVM funding. Despite this, Projet Montreal has increased funding every year since – with the second highest increase towards the SPVM ever approved for the 2021 budget.

Rutland says a good thing Projet Montreal has done is provide a small increase to community organizations that address violence at the roots. He said, however, the community violence prevention budget is not going towards these communities. He added that almost all going to organizations that don’t address community violence at its roots and encourages organizations to share information with the police which can be dangerous.

Rutland says community investment is long term, while funding police is a short term investment.