MONTREAL -- It only took 24 hours for the public security minister to seriously undermine a 500-page report on the future of police in Quebec. 

The report's main conclusion of reducing the number of police forces in Quebec from 31 to 13 was dead in the water. 

"In the short term, everything will remain as it is," said Quebec’s public security minister, Geneviève Guilbault Wednesday. 

"This is very complex."

The report published yesterday suggested that merging smaller forces would allow them to pool resources for more complex investigations into modern crimes like cyber security.

The Surete du Quebec and the SPVM aren't commenting the report.

But according to the federation of municipal police forces (FPMQ), merging smaller forces won't save any money. Towns that already turned their policing to the SQ already receive incentives from the government.

Populations generally support having a local police and specialized squads assisting smaller police services already exist for complex investigations.

"It's important for us to maintain a proximity with the communities we serve," says Francois Lemay, president of the Federation of municipal police officers.

"We don't understand why all of a sudden we're told the Surete du Quebec would do a better job."

Retired Montreal police commander André Durocher said the opposition to such a plan was predictable from day one.

He cites, as an example, a simple merger between two SPVM neighbouring stations in NDG and Cote-St-Luc, which lead to protests from citizens a year ago.

"It's a great step in the right direction, however, when you deal with human nature, you're gonna deal with politicians who will not want to lose control over their police department, you'll have unions stepping in," he said. 

Minister Guilbault also stated she was against the dismantling of UPAC, the anti-corruption unit, in order to merge it with a broader economics crime division, as proposed by the report.

"For now, the UPAC will remain as it is," she said, adding that the unit has a new director with a roadmap in hands.

One of the recommendations in the report that everyone seems to agree on, however, is a committment to hire more visible minorities.