The city of Montreal and the police union disagreed Wednesday about whether or not there will be job losses amid nearly $14 million in cuts to this year's police budget.
The city of Montreal says the cuts can be made without any job losses but Montreal's police brotherhood disagrees, saying the cuts will mean the loss of about 200 street-level officers.
The city counters that negotiations are going well, that $10 million of the cuts have already been decided upon and that no jobs have been lost.
Union perspective
The police brotherhood says up to 90 per cent of the police budget is dedicated to salaries, so the most logical place to cut would be personnel.
"We're talking about between six and eight police officers by police station," Yves Francoeur, president of the police union, told CTV News.
"For sure when the citizens are going to call 911 for an emergency call, it's going to last longer to answer the calls.
"We'll have less time to patrol parks, to patrol metro stations, to fight all kinds of criminality, especially gangs, so it's absolutely false to say that the security will be the same."
The brotherhood states that crimes against people have gone up in the first half of 2009.
Police brass
When asked about the potential cuts, Montreal police spokesman Daniel Rousseau gave little information.
"The negotiations are on-going and all possibilities are on the table," he said repeatedly to various reporter questions.
City hall
Claude Dauphin, executive committee member in charge of public security, said Wednesday that $10 million worth of cuts have already been accounted for and that there's only $3.8 million left to cut from the police budget. Up to this point no jobs have been lost, he said.
City Hall, Montreal police and the union all refused to provide documentation to support their positions, citing ongoing negotiations.
