While construction detours have been a headache for Montreal’s drivers this year, the city’s police officers have been reaping a windfall while they direct traffic.
Both the city and Transport Quebec enlist the city’s police to work on traffic details and at least two officers are dispatched to every work site: one to control cars and the other to handle the lights.
In total, there are between 100 and 160 police officers working traffic detail in the city on any given day, all of whom are getting paid overtime rates of time-and-a-half. On one day just before the construction holiday, there were 250 officers on traffic detail.
“The reason is very simple, because we have to keep in mind, we have to respond to emergency calls,” said Andre Durocher, the head of the SPVM’s road safety division. “We don’t want citizens to be penalized or jeopardized because of that, so the officers we see doing (traffic duty), they are doing that outside of regular hours.”
While the city’s budget for the year calls for $686.6 million for policing, it’s unclear how much all this overtime is going to cost taxpayers.
Chantal Roux coordinates those details for the SPVM and she said the officers generally enjoy it, especially during the summer.
“For a lot of them, it’s something else,” she said. “It’s fun and it’s teamwork.”
