Dagher hints at bills for event security
Police chief Fady Dagher is floating the idea of having the SPVM bill big events for providing security.
-
Kate
Reply
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Uatu on REM train evacuates after long delay
- Kate on REM train evacuates after long delay
- CE on The Olympics, a 50th anniversary
- Kate on Montreal has the world’s biggest urban farm
- Ephraim on Montreal has the world’s biggest urban farm
- Chris on Montreal has the world’s biggest urban farm
- Nicholas on REM train evacuates after long delay
Pages
Other levels of gov’t
Sideblog projects
Enviro Montreal is a Bluesky feed that follows local environment news. Also available on Mastodon.
Archives
Pages rescued from montreal.com
Meta
steph 11:25 on 2024-06-04 Permalink
Slow to the table, but it’s a great idea. The big events that make tons of money can pay their fair share.
Blork 11:36 on 2024-06-04 Permalink
Is it though? Sounds like the proverbial “slippery slope.” Whenever money enters into transactions that were previously moneyless, things shift.
Will we find ourselves in a few years in a situation where only the paying customers get good policing?
Will we find ourselves with fewer police on the streets and on the edge of town because so many are essentially providing private security for the big events?
Will we find ourselves mired in conflicts of interest when some people or organizations are under less police scrutiny because they’re the hands that feed the police?
Will the top brass at the cop shops be more susceptible to bribery and corruption if a free flow of money is introduced into the culture of civic policing?
Am I just an old goat who fears and resists anything different, or am I falling back on a lifetime of watching money systematically corrupt civil society?
bob 11:45 on 2024-06-04 Permalink
All those are valid concerns. Also, a point frequently raised by cranks during the printemps érable was the cost of policing the demos – should you have to pay to exercise a democratic right?
Is the city not charging for that extra expense as part of the cost of permits for large events?
Tee Owe 14:18 on 2024-06-04 Permalink
Blork +1 – money systematically corrupts civil society
Myles 14:29 on 2024-06-04 Permalink
This just seems like a convenient way for the police to decide who deserves protection and who doesn’t. Just raise the price beyond what an organization can pay and tell them you can no longer guarantee their safety.
Ian 20:47 on 2024-06-04 Permalink
It’s also a cash grab in that the police can determine when the police (as opposeed ot private security) need to be hired.
@Tee Owe Bakunin suggested UBI & in-trade vouchers that expired monthly instead of cash. I’m down if you are.
Joey 09:56 on 2024-06-05 Permalink
If big events require public expenditures that are beyond a certain threshold, they should be paid for via a tax collected from organizations that host big events. Perhaps this tax should only apply to non-profits (though, as Ephraim likes to point out, many non-profits, especially in the event-organizing world, act as for-profits, especially when it comes time to distribute the revenue before it’s considered ‘profit’). You kick in a little extra in the Big Event Tax, but you get all the public services you need (policing, water, transit, whatever). Crucially, though, it’s not Consumers Distributing, so you don’t get to consult the policing catalogue to pick and choose the number of cops you’d like – you make your tax-based contribution, you provide information to the City and the City decides what additional resources you need. Big profit-making event organizers pay for the services they need without entering into a quid-pro-quo dynamic.