Bonnardel floats suspending driver's licences for those with mental illness, then changes his mind

Quebec Public Security Minister François Bonnardel on Tuesday raised the idea of suspending the driver's licence of certain people diagnosed with a mental health problem, then promptly nixed it.

Bonnardel was commenting on the Amqui tragedy Tuesday morning on Radio-Canada.

On Monday, a 38-year-old suspect allegedly struck pedestrians walking on the side of the road in Amqui, a premeditated act, according to the police investigation.

The tragedy left two people dead in the small Lower St. Lawrence community. In addition, a baby and a young child were seriously injured, but they are expected to survive.

Bonnardel wondered during the Radio-Canada interview if the suspect was mentally ill.

"If these people are mentally ill, was the follow-up done by the doctors? And afterwards, can these people get a driver's licence?" he asked.

"Is this something we can do to protect (the population)?"

Later, at a press briefing in Amqui, he seemed to change his mind.

"You know, when you're a minister, you try to find solutions, and often my team doesn't like it when I think out loud. I was thinking out loud this morning," he said.

"Let me be clear: you don't start an exercise in government because of this."

In the morning, the opposition parties welcomed the idea of thinking about ways to prevent rammimg attacks in Quebec.

Last month, a 51-year-old man crashed into a daycare centre in the Sainte-Rose neighbourhood of Laval. Two children died.

Interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, Marc Tanguay, proposed on Tuesday a 'national conversation' that would explore the effects of the pandemic on mental health.

On the issue of driver's licence suspensions, he warned against "ostracizing" people.

"I think it needs to be discussed. When I saw that this morning, I said to myself: 'How do we determine, how do we say that this morning, OK, you don't have your licence because we assume that you are a danger?' That's the whole question. (...) We really have to help them, we must not ostracize them, but if Minister Bonnardel puts forward this idea, we are ready to discuss it," said Tanguay.