Sûreté du Québec

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Sûreté du Québec
Coat of Arms granted by the Canadian Heraldic Authority
Badge of the Sûreté du Québec.
Agency overview
Formed May 1, 1870
Legal personality Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction* Province of Quebec, Canada
Map of Sûreté du Québec's jurisdiction.
Size 1,542,056 km2
Population 7,651,531
General nature
Operational structure
Overviewed by The Queen in Right of Quebec
Headquarters Montreal
Officers 5,269[3]
Elected officer responsible Stéphane Bergeron, Ministre de la Sécurité publique
Agency executive Mario Laprise, Directeur Général
Districts 10
Website
http://www.sq.gouv.qc.ca
Footnotes
* Divisional agency: Division of the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction.

Sûreté du Québec or SQ (English: literally Quebec Safety,[nb 1] more commonly Quebec Provincial Police or QPP[nb 2] as no official English name exists) is the provincial police force for the Canadian province of Quebec.[4] The headquarters of the Sûreté du Québec are located on Parthenais street in Montreal and the force employs roughly 5,200 officers.

The primary function of the Sûreté du Québec is to enforce provincial laws, some municipal bylaws, the criminal code, and many other laws throughout Quebec and to assist municipal police forces when needed. Members of the force can also legally act as forest conservation agents for example. The Sûreté du Québec is also responsible for providing municipal police services to municipalities in the province that do not otherwise have municipal or regional police services. Currently that includes municipalities with under 50,000 people. As such, the force is mainly present in small rural and suburban areas. The force also patrols provincial highways. In addition, the Sûreté du Québec can investigate any incident that involves wrongdoing by a municipal police force or a case where a police intervention caused death.

In the early 2000s, the force absorbed many smaller police services (e.g., Drummondville and Saint-Hyacinthe).

History

On February 1, 1870, the Quebec provincial government created the Police provinciale du Québec[5] under the direction of its first commissioner, Judge Pierre-Antoine Doucet. This new force took over the headquarters of the Quebec City municipal police, which were then disbanded, although the city relaunched a municipal force in 1877.

In 1900, two distinct provincial police forces were created: the Office of Provincial Detectives of Montreal, in response to a crime wave in that city, and the Revenue Police, whose mission was to collect taxes. In 1902, the government decided that the provincial police should no longer be directed by a judge but by an officer of the police themselves. Augustin McCarthy was chosen as the first chief drawn from the ranks of the police.

In 1922, two headquarters were established, one in Quebec City, headed by McCarthy, and one in Montreal, headed by Dieudonné Daniel Lorrain. The Office of Provincial Detectives of Montreal became part of the general provincial police in that year. The Quebec division included 35 police officers and 2 detectives.

In 1925, police officers started patrolling on motorcycles.

Montebello Incident

The Sûreté du Québec admitted in August 2007 that they had used undercover police posing as protestors at the 2007 Montebello SPP meetings. This admission was made after a video captured by protestors was widely circulated in the Canadian media and made available on YouTube.[6] Although use of undercover agents at protests of this kind is widespread, the video was especially controversial because it appeared to show one of the officers carrying a rock, suggesting to some the police may have been acting as agents provocateurs by inciting violence.

LPRS: License Plate Recognition System

The Sûreté du Québec has been using the LPRS systems since 2009. The objective of the LPRS is to make the streets and highways more safe by removing vehicles not authorized to be on the road. The hotlist plate database can consist of the following types:

  • unregistered plate (not paid at DMV / SAAQ)
  • Stolen vehicle
  • AMBER Alert
  • Wanted Vehicle

The LPRS are currently installed on 10 Sûreté du Québec vehicles. The LPRS integrator is Gtechna. Gtechna is primarily a citations issuance and management software developer which integrates mission critical technologies such as License Plate Recognition (LPR) to streamline the enforcement of moving and parking violations.

Chiefs and Directors-general

  • Pierre-Antoine Doucet (1870–1877)
  • Jean-Baptiste Amyot (1877–1878)
  • Alexandre Chauveau (1880–1899)
  • Augustin McCarthy (1902–1932)
  • Dieudonné Daniel Lorrain (1922–1928)
  • Maurice-Charles Lalonde (1929–1936)
  • Philippe Aubé (1936–1937)
  • Philippe-Auguste Piuze (1937–1940)
  • Marcel Gaboury (1940–1944)
  • Joseph-Paul Lamarche (1944–1950)
  • Hilaire Beauregard (1954–1960)
  • Josaphat Brunet (1960–1965)
  • J. Adrien Robert (1965–1968)
  • Maurice St-Pierre (1969–1973)
  • Paul-A. Benoît (1973–1974)
  • Jacques Beaudoin (1974–1988)
  • Robert Lavigne (1988–1995)
  • Serge Barbeau (1995–1996)
  • Guy Coulombe (1996–1998)
  • Florent Gagné (1998–2003)
  • Normand Proulx (2004 - June 30, 2008)
  • Richard Deschesnes (July 1, 2008 - )

Districts

  1. Bas-Saint-Laurent-Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine
  2. Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean
  3. Capitale-Nationale-Chaudière-Appalaches
  4. Mauricie-Centre-du-Québec
  5. Estrie
  6. Montréal-Laval-Laurentides-Lanaudière
  7. Outaouais
  8. Abitibi-Témiscamingue-Nord-du-Québec
  9. Côte-Nord
  10. Montérégie

Rank badges

Rank insignia of the Sûreté du Québec are on contained on "slip on" sleeves worn on the epaulettes of uniform jacket or shirt shoulders.

The rank insignia:

Rank Sergeant Lieutenant Captain Inspector
Insignia
Rank Chief Inspector Deputy Director Director General of the SQ
Insignia

Fleet

A Dodge Charger police car from the Sûreté du Québec
Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor from the Sûreté du Québec
A 2006-09 Chevrolet Impala police car from the Sûreté du Québec

Cars:

Trucks:

  • Dodge Dakota
  • Ford E-250
  • Ford F-350
  • Ford F-450
  • Dodge Ram 2500 pickup

Motorcycles:

  • BMW Police Motorcycle
  • Mikado bicycles

Special Vehicles:

Air:

Sea:

  • Doral Patrol Boat
  • Bombardier Sea-doo

Wild:

Miscellaneous:

Equipment

The standard-issue weapon of Sûreté du Québec is the Glock pistol loaded in 9x19mm Parabellum caliber. Various models are adopted such as the standard Glock 17, compact Glock 19 and sub-compact Glock 26.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Compare to many City/State/Provincial police departments being part of "Public Safety".
  2. ↑ Being a minority, Quebec English speakers frequently use common or official French language terms instead of the more recognised English terms of North-American English. see Quebec English,[1][2]

References

  1. ↑ "QPP - Quebec Provincial Police". Acronymfinder.com. 1990-07-11. Retrieved 2012-08-14. 
  2. ↑ "Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest - Canada - CBC News". Cbc.ca. 2007-08-23. Retrieved 2012-08-14. 
  3. ↑ "Effectifs et ressources - Police nationale - Sûreté du Québec". Sq.gouv.qc.ca. Retrieved 2012-08-14. 
  4. ↑ The Sûreté du Québec on the official website describes the force as a "national police force". "As a national police force providing services to citizens, other police organizations and the State, the Sûreté du Québec is also a leader in..."
  5. ↑ "1870 Les débuts de la Sûreté du Québec - Police - Sûreté du Québec". Sq.gouv.qc.ca. Retrieved 2012-08-14. 
  6. ↑ "police accused of attempting to incite violence at spp". YouTube. 2007-08-22. Retrieved 2012-08-14. 
  7. ↑ http://zone911.fm93.com/actualites/services-urgences/policier/item/15495-voici-en-primeur-que-sera-le-nouveau-v%C3%A9hicule-blind%C3%A9-de-la-police-de-qu%C3%A9bec

External links

Look up sûreté du québec in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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