Every Montreal police officer should have access to a Taser by 2020 if interim chief Martin Prud'homme has his way.
Prud'homme said he is taking steps to give officers more non-lethal methods of subduing people in response to a coroner's request in the wake of the 2014 death of Alain Magloire.
Magloire, who had mental health issues, was threatening several officers with a hammer when one officer struck him with a car; Magloire was then shot and killed by officers.
The coroner investigating the death said that if police had been equipped with a stun gun it could have avoided Magloire's death.
The coroner suggested the number of stun weapons was insufficient for a city the size of Montreal and lagged behind other Canadian cities like Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto.
Montreal police currently have 60 Tasers, and Prud'homme wants the force to have 200, one for every two-person team on patrol.
Officers will begin training soon, because using the stun wgun requires two days of training and an annual refresher.
By Montreal police estimates, the cost of buying the Tasers and training officers will amount to roughly $750,000.
The request for more Tasers is supported by the police union and rank-and-file officers.
Montreal's public security commission debated the proposal Tuesday at City Hall.
A group of senior police officers told city councillors Tuesday they've been impressed with the effectiveness of the controversial weapon, noting that simply displaying it is usually enough to defuse the situation in 80 to 85 per cent of cases.
Cmdr. Daniel Gervais said the weapon was deployed 236 times in Montreal in 2017 and made contact with a suspect just five times.
Montreal police deputy police chief Dominic Harvey, who is in charge of rank-and-file officers, told councillors about a recent high-risk intervention in a busy downtown mall that was resolved using a Taser.
"They (officers) said if they didn't have it, they would have only had their service weapon to resolve the situation," Harvey said. "Whether it's maintaining order in a situation like the one I described, the objective is to minimize the amount of force used."
A memorandum sent to officers Monday noted that police stationed at Trudeau airport as well as in the metro system will have the weapons in addition to front-line officers.
Opponents of Tasers, however, say they can be just as deadly as other weapons.
Dan Philip of the Black Coalition of Quebec pointed out that several people have died after being struck by a Taser.
"There is a kind of feeling that it is a preventative measure, but it is not a preventative measure. It is a lethal weapon and it is being used so indiscriminately that people cannot feel secure when there are Tasers," said Philip. "A system should be in place -- not to Taser people -- but to give them an opportunity, to give police an opportunity, to deal with those problems.”
There was a call for a moratorium on stun weapons after the death of Quilem Registre in October 2007. He was shocked six times in a minute and died four days later. The coroner who investigated said it might have contributed in his death.
City councillor Marvin Rotrand is among those opposing the measure.
“Intermediary weapons don't save lives as the police contend they do. What they do is lead to force becoming more commonplace in police interventions a more rapid escalation of use of force,” he said.
- With a report from Sidhartha Banerjee of The Canadian Press
