I decide to do some reading of the Code of Penal Procedure of Quebec ” Annotated ” and if this is the case then the two brothers have a case to argue in Superior Court.

The power given in “Art 87 of the Code of Penal Procedure of Quebec which all government inspectors use for enforcement of their respected acts, only applies to government Employees of the Province, City or Town and ought not apply to personnel from a private security agency , As reference in the “2012 Code of Penal Procedure of Quebec Annotated”

Thus the powers of arrest and the issuing statement of offence should be argued as been Illegal, and should be dismiss .

Furthermore in the public interest The Gazette and its legal department should investigated the legalities of powers of arrest and the issuing of statement of offence by private security agency employees subcontracted to enforce City by-laws.

I don’t believe the media has done a poor job of reporting this story. It seems pretty obvious that you have your own personally biased opinion on this story since you said that you work in public security and are trying to defend the actions of someone in your industry. I won’t negatively judge your opinion since you’re entitled to your own viewpoint on the matter but I will say that there needs to be more transparency with public officials since they are not working for private entities and should disclose any information that the public demands on a particular subject matter.

In addition, it’s evident that there is a disconnect between public security officials and the mayor and council if there are threats being made against employees and that should be resolved immediately.

I’m more concerned with treating residents of this town and the West-Island with mutual respect. There were many steps that could have been taken before trying to detain two kids for the simple crime of playing hockey. There seems to be a lack of clear communication to the boys on what was happening along with a bigger issue of having too many West-Island boroughs having too many conflicting laws.

As for the need to detain someone; were the boys going to run away like criminals? An individual from the chalet or the officer couldn’t clearly discuss with these two boys the current situation and have watched them leave the park with a strong warning before issuing a fine? I’ve seen people breaking automobile speed laws that have gotten away with a warning from the police for actions that are way more harmful to people’s safety than this.

I won’t doubt that what you say about the penal code is true. It’s your job so you know the rules better than I do. But, I believe the intent of that law was created for situations where public security officials could aid police if they see someone speeding down a road drunk and causing safety hazards or in situations where individuals are vandalizing or causing damage to public property or residential break-ins and there are no police that are available within the vicinity. I don’t believe the intent was to detain any residents for any reason without a strong justification that they are breaking the law. And in this case, I don’t consider playing hockey in a rink late at night worthy of using that justification.

I could be wrong. Maybe these kids are punks and got what they deserved and are trying to avoid paying a fine. But, on CTV News Montreal and many other media outlets, they don’t look like punks and wouldn’t be sharing their story to every media outlet available if they didn’t feel strongly that an injustice was done to them.

If there is a solution that can come from this I would recommend that…

1) The court drop their appeal

2) Council and mayor discuss with other municipalities how to better synchronize park closing times (We live in the West-Island, it’s not that big a place. No need for different times between every single borough because they all want to be special and different from each other). If this were Pierrefonds, these kids would have still been legally allowed to play without any problems.

3) No employee is fired and the mayor acknowledges that he made an error in judgement and apologizes to the employee for simply doing their job.

4) Mayor and council review this outcome and work on changing their by-laws so that something like this doesn’t occur again. I’m pretty sure that with today’s technology, these kids could have easily been given a warning and some sort of written notice that gives them notice that they’re not welcome in the park after hours without the need to give out a fine. If they continue to disregard the notice then you can fine them…but i’m guessing they’re just going to play at the rink near their residence in Pierrefonds and avoid ever coming back to this park ever again after what has transpired.

5) Public security and the city need to have better communication with each other. It sounds like there is resentment among public security officials for not being paid the same wages as officers in the same line of work. There doesn’t seem to be much trust between both parties. I don’t have a clear solution for this as I’m unaware of how the salaries fit into the city’s budget but it seems like more can be done to keep these at an equal footing with the salaries of others in the same line of work.

The officer was courteous enough to give them a verbal warning at first and came back only an hour later, but the two defendants did not comply with the initial warning. What would you have done? Give them another warning? To what end? Unfortunately, there are other things to do in a day’s work than warning the same bunch of people 10 times over and over again. Legally speaking, the officer didn’t even have to give the initial warning and could’ve fined them both right away 1 minute into the curfew. This is NOT what happened and ample opportunity was given for them to leave.

As for “some” media outlets reporting skills, please do your homework first next time before blowing something perfectly normal completely out of proportions. Since there was reason to believe that there was a serious error in the judgement rendered, the appeal was NOT initiated by the city of DDO, but rather by the municipal Court of Montreal who feared that the jurisprudence it would create would impact future cases in ALL jurisdictions, not just DDO. Poor reporting skills are why most public servants won’t openly speak to the media in the first place… and this article is a prime example of that!

If someone told me to leave because they needed to get the ice ready for the following day; I would happily oblige so that I could return the next day and continue to play hockey since many times the condition of the ice in DDO parks is so poorly maintained that I would crack through the ice with my skates because nobody running the chalet took the proper care to ensure that the ice conditions were good enough to skate on.

I guess it’s much easier to harass and fine kids when there was a much easier solution right in front of you. That solution was to simply have someone talk to them and tell them that the park is closing and the need to water down the ice so that ice conditions are good for the following day.

No hockey player that I know of would refuse to leave if they knew that they couldn’t play hockey the following day because of poor ice and weather conditions.

We kind of need a rink to play hockey. The very same reason that these kids chose this park in the first place and now most likely won’t be going back there anytime soon.

1. Public Security advises the group of young men verbally that the park is closed sometime after 10:00 PM
2. Public Security returns back to the park one hour later and sees that 2 young men are still in the park.
3. Public Security issues a ticket (state of offence) to each young man for been in the park after been previously warned that the park is closed and to leave.
4. The young men contest the state of offence at Municipal court.
5. The young men successfully argue in Municipal court that the verbal warning issued one hour prior to the group and them was not clearly made and the signage in the park was not acceptable.
6. The Judge agrees with the young men and acquits both of them.
7. Montreal Municipal Court prosecutor decided to appeals the judges verdict to Superior Court, since it will affect all future cases in Quebec involving verbal warnings and signage.
9. The young men get the notice of appeal to Superior Court and call the media.
10. Mayor Edward Janiszewski is not aware of the Municipal court appeal and threatens to fire the employees involved.

The story is not about hockey, the Mayor or the Public Security Employees. Its about verbal warnings and signage, and rights of citizen who live near the park , receiving a quite night of sleep at 11:30 PM.