Public safety committee approves 2021/22 activity report
Public safety committee approves 2021/22 activity report
At the MRC Pontiac council of mayors meeting in September, Bryson Mayor Alain Gagnon, who also serves as the President of the public safety committee, presented the annual CSP Activity Report, which compiles the statistics from the local Sûreté du Québec detachment from the previous fiscal year (in this case, April 1 2021 to March 31 2022).
Gagnon, who is a former SQ officer, explained that two things that jumped out from the report for him were that arsons as well as assaults and sexual assaults were on the rise this year. He suggested that the statistical rise might be due to increased reporting of incidents and also said that some of the increase that he’d mentioned took place later this year, meaning it wouldn’t show up in the statistics until next year’s report.
| Crime designation | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 |
| Offenses resulting in death | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| Sexual Assault | 18 | 17 | 14 | 10 | 20 |
| Assault | 105 | 90 | 112 | 103 | 119 |
| Robbery | 2 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| Other crimes against people (ex. extortion, threats etc.) | 58 | 46 | 71 | 67 | 64 |
| Total | 184 | 153 | 201 | 185 | 203 |
| Type of crime | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 |
| Arson | 7 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 11 |
| Break and Enter | 78 | 68 | 39 | 38 | 43 |
| Theft | 43 | 30 | 50 | 27 | 58 |
| Auto theft | 20 | 22 | 25 | 22 | 12 |
| Selling stolen property | 5 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Fraud | 25 | 36 | 22 | 22 | 37 |
| Mischief | 43 | 51 | 45 | 44 | 40 |
| Total | 221 | 218 | 190 | 162 | 203 |
(Data from pg. 13 of report)
Gagnon also said that there’d been an increase in impaired driving in recent months, that wasn’t necessarily reflected in the report. The CSP meets roughly once every two months and receives updates from the police on crime trends.
In addition, the report notes that drug arrests are down significantly for the area (less than half the number from the 2017/18 report), something that Gagnon attributed to the legalization of recreational cannabis in 2018. The report does add that the SQ still targets outdoor cannabis grow-ops with their helicopter, though they only managed to destroy 38 plants and make one arrest in the Pontiac region this year. For comparison, the 2020/21 report recorded that they destroyed 494 plants in the Pontiac.
The report also notes the number of measures that the police have taken to enforce public health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, though the statistics are extremely vague. They recorded 49 calls that they responded to regarding the COVID restrictions, but offer no further details. For comparison, the 2020/21 report records 110 calls directly related to COVID rules. They provide no data on the number of fines given or actual infractions, just the number of calls.
The full text of the 2021/22 CSP report (French only) is available below:
rapport_annuel_dactivites_poste_mrc_pontiac_2021-2022_v.f._compressed_1_.pdf
The CSP reports from previous years (again, French only) are available on the SQ’s website.
