Montreal allocates $7 million for youth-oriented violence prevention initiatives

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante announced that the city will allocate $7 million to mobilize youth in the prevention of violence, during a press conference at the Saint-Michel library on Thursday.

The Plante administration's announcement comes in the context of a spate of gun violence across the metropolis in recent months. The mayor said that this initiative will promote the mobilization and involvement of teenagers in the neighbourhoods most affected by this issue.

This amount will allow for the development of sports infrastructures, the holding of community activities or the production of podcasts or documentaries by young people to raise awareness of their reality. Plante hopes that these initiatives will strengthen the sense of belonging in the neighbourhoods and reduce boredom, which can sometimes lead to crime.

The mayor also mentioned that accompanying teenagers was one of her priorities, and that information and ideation sessions as well as a telephone service had been created to help them share their ideas.

Plante stressed that her administration wanted to put young people "at the heart of the decisions" in the fight against violence.

"That's why the school environment, the community environment, the police department, the City of Montreal and the other levels of government, we all have to listen and be involved to offer opportunities to our beautiful youth," she said at a press conference.

Following the work of the Montreal Forum to Combat Gun Violence, held last March, the city committed to prioritize initiatives that strengthen the sense of belonging to the community, prevention and interventions with target populations and high-risk youth.

"In order to fully address the issue of violence, we must also look at its root causes. I'm talking about the inequalities that exist between individuals, and the inequalities between neighbourhoods," said Plante.

The sum comes from the $32 million set aside for the participatory budget, which allows the population to decide on the use of part of the municipal money by proposing ideas for improvements or equipment. This year's second edition of the participatory budget focuses on three main themes: youth, equity and safety.

"For us, the participatory budget is one of the ways to give the population the opportunity to reclaim their power to act on its city, its street, its neighbourhood. And that is extremely important," said the mayor.

Led by spokesperson Abdelhaq Sari, the official opposition on public health, reacted to the Plante administration's announcement:

"The measures presented today have been recycled from an announcement made last March. If the Plante administration had really wanted to listen to young people and offer them tools for recreation, it would have offered them the sports center it promised them in Montreal North and that they have been waiting for for too long," reads a press release.

-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 13, 2022.