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Gilles Boudreau, handing out leaflets to encourage drivers to slow down in St. Lazare. (JOHN MORSTAD/The Gazette)
New form of neighbourhood watch combats reckless driving, burglaries
Citizens push for safety
DAVID JOHNSTON
The Gazette
Monday, April 28, 2008
Gilles Boudreau, handing out leaflets to encourage drivers to slow down in St. Lazare. (JOHN MORSTAD/The Gazette)
With dangerous driving overtaking burglary as the paramount
crime fear in the quiet realm of Montreal suburbia, a new type of
neighbourhood watch is taking root.
Ever since Patricia Jolicoeur of St. Lazare was left paralyzed and
brain-damaged because of a reckless-driving incident in late 2006,
residents of eight municipalities around Montreal have created their
own local "public safety committees," like the original one founded
in St. Lazare.
Edward Hakim, 21, of Dorval was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months in
prison in the Jolicoeur case, for dangerous operation of a vehicle
causing bodily harm.
The car he was driving veered into the oncoming lane on a
residential street and hit Jolicoeur, then 27, as she walked her dog
at the side of the road.
All but one of the nine public-safety committees - or Comités
d'action des citoyens en sécurité publique - are situated in western
off-island suburbs in Vaudreuil-Soulanges County.
The network expanded to the South Shore this month with the
addition of a committee in St. Rémi.
(Municipalities in Vaudreuil-Soulanges with public-safety panels
are Notre Dame de l'Île Perrot, St. Zotique, Les Coteaux, Coteau du
Lac, Rigaud, St. Clet and Ste. Justine de Newton.)
Among other things, these committees hold periodic rallies at
designated intersections where they distribute leaflets containing
good-driving tips.
The committees pass along citizens' complaints about problem
drivers to police; in some cases police make personal visits to the
homes of perceived problem drivers to discuss their neighbours'
concerns.
"Most dangerous drivers in the suburbs aren't people from outside
the neighbourhood; they usually live in the neighbourhood and are
known to their neighbours," said Gilles Boudreau, co-founder of the
St. Lazare committee.
The new committees are supplanting long-dormant Neighbourhood Watch
organizations in the Montreal area as the principal link between the
community and police.
Although the original Neighbourhood Watch brand is still active, in
Canada it is still a force only in the Maritimes, southern Ontario
and Alberta.
In the Montreal region, all nine public-safety committees are
situated in off-island municipalities and in all cases they have
become aligned with the Sûreté du Québec.
No individual can become a member of a committee without undergoing
a criminal-record background check. Once approved, a new member is
given a special identification badge bearing the logo of the
committee and of the SQ.
"This is all very new for us," said provincial police Capt. Mario
Lessard, commanding officer of the three SQ stations in
Vaudreuil-Soulanges.
The committees and the SQ have hosted police officers from Norway
and Belgium who are interested in learning how the committees and
police work in partnership.
Although the St. Lazare committee was created in early 2006 to
combat a rash of burglaries, the Jolicoeur accident in late 2006
provided it with a new focus and made it of interest to residents of
neighbouring suburbs.
Vaudreuil-Soulanges, which includes the booming suburbs west of
Montreal Island, is poised to overtake the suburbs north of Laval as
Greater Montreal's fastest-growing region.
Vaudreuil-Soulanges County's population has grown to 122,000 from
102,000 in the past five years, with another 20,000 people expected
to move in over the next five years, Lessard said.
"The problem is that municipal infrastructure has failed to keep
pace," the SQ regional chief said.
The roads system in that region is still relatively underdeveloped.
As a result, traffic between residential neighbourhoods and main
highways is clogged, Lessard said. Motorists get impatient, and
that's when dangerous driving becomes a problem.
The trouble is compounded by the fact there are few sidewalks,
bicycle paths or traffic-calming measures on roads linking these new
residential neighbourhoods to highways, Lessard said.
The SQ wasn't greeted warmly in the western off-island suburbs when
municipal police forces in Vaudreuil-Soulanges County were dissolved
by provincial decree in 2002 and replaced by provincial police.
Since then, SQ staffing levels have been a political sore point,
with local mayors saying their region is understaffed when measured
against Canadian policing norms. For the SQ, though, forging links
with the public safety committees increases its manpower, in effect.
"Overall, I look at the SQ links as a positive thing," said Vincent
Gallant, founder of the public-safety committee in Notre Dame de
l'Île Perrot.
"They help build police awareness of problem areas, and that's a
good thing."