Montreal sets aside millions for police body cameras over next decade. The details remain unclear
City financial planning documents include $18.3M for purchasing body cameras
After years of pilot projects, reports, mixed messages and clashes with the opposition at city hall, Montreal police are finally going to be getting body cameras — according to the city's latest budget.
Four years ago, as protesters called for an end to racial profiling and changes to how the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) polices its Black and Indigenous communities, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante decided the city would not go ahead with plans to equip its officers with body cameras.
Plante said the cost of outfitting thousands of officers with them — estimated at the time to be $17.4 million over five years plus another $24 million annually to run — was too much.
That same year, following a year-long trial by 78 officers, the SPVM concluded body cameras have little impact on interventions, present logistical challenges and leave most officers who have to wear them feeling as if they're under surveillance.
In 2020, Plante reversed course but provided no timeline.
Now, the city of Montreal has earmarked millions of dollars over the next decade for the purchase and deployment of police body cams.
As part of the 2024 municipal budget, the $18.3-million sum is allocated to "enhance the transparency of interventions and strengthen the bond of trust with the public." The city's 10-year 2024-2033 plan says the money will be used to acquire and distribute 3,000 cameras to officers and create a video recording processing centre.
But the details remain unclear.
The city told CBC in a statement that the money is being "set aside pending guidance from the provincial government" and that it is waiting for "confirmation from the Quebec government that the technology and methods will be standardized" but as of now, no equipment has been purchased or planned.
Murkier still, Quebec's Public Security Ministry told CBC that while it is working to define a framework for camera use in the province, it hasn't begun a process of acquiring cameras or earmarking funds for that purpose.
"It should be noted that the Quebec government has not made any decisions regarding body cameras. To date, no directives or instructions have been sent to police forces," it said in a statement.
The SPVM has refused to comment. The union that represents the SPVM, the Montreal Police Brotherhood, did not respond.
Expert surprised — and confused
Rémi Boivin, a criminology professor at Université de Montréal, was involved in both the 2019 SPVM report and a 2022 report about a Sûreté du Québec (SQ) pilot project on body cameras.
He says he was surprised to hear money was earmarked for body cameras without any announcement by Montreal or the province.
Boivin says that until now, even after testing out the technology, the government's official position was that it wasn't signing on.
"I'm confused about it. It seems like they're saying something and they're doing something else," he said, adding that the money may be the city's way of planning for expenses it foresees coming down the line.
"If they put it in the budget, then it's a pretty good sign that they seem to be going for it."
According to Boivin, going ahead with body cameras could be a good investment — as long as it comes with changes to the criminal justice system, like treating recordings as evidence in a court of law.
He also says the technology has become considerably less expensive and has resolved some of the technical issues during Montreal's pilot project.
However, the amount allotted in the 2024 budget isn't sufficient to cover the cost of actually deploying the technology, especially when factoring in the recurring costs of storing recordings.
'21st century policing'
Alain Babineau, director of racial profiling and public safety for the Red Coalition, a non-profit anti-racism lobby organization based in Montreal, says body cameras are long overdue.
Officers part of any modern force, Babineau says, should be outfitted with them.
"It's just part of 21st century policing. It's not a silver bullet, but from a racial justice standpoint, it's the only real tool that a person has to legitimize their claim against a police officer in the court of law," said Babineau.
He said it's especially needed in Quebec because of its denial of systematic racism and continued use of street checks despite calls for a moratorium.
However, he says that the 10-year timeline is too long and raises questions about the credibility of whatever plan may be implemented.
In recent years, other anti-racism groups — as well as police organizations — have voiced a need for body cameras.
Last November, the Association of Quebec Police Chiefs called for body cameras following an increase of assaults on police officers between 2021 and 2022.
Montreal would not be the only city in Canada to go through with it.
Some Canadian cities have been outfitting their officers with body cameras for several years. Calgary police have been wearing body cameras since 2019. More recently, Alberta decided to extend the practice to the whole of the province.
Vancouver police have also begun wearing cams as part of a pilot project. Meanwhile, the RCMP has long promised to equip Mounties across the country with cameras but has hit several delays.
Watch: The debate around police body camera continues, efficacy questioned:
'Money badly invested'
However, Massimiliano Mulone, another criminology professor at Université de Montréal, thinks the research still isn't conclusive one way or the other.
"Some studies say that complaints decrease, others that they increase. Some say it improves confidence in the police, others say it makes no difference," he said.
Mulone isn't convinced it will prevent police violence, pointing out that Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was aware he was being filmed when he murdered George Floyd.
Mulone also doesn't buy into the idea that the technology is effective in protecting people who are victims of police violence.
He says the video captured by body cameras is just as often used to defend officers by allowing them to counter the complainant's version of events and create enough reasonable doubt to avoid conviction.
"This is money badly invested — a politician's move for politicians," he said, adding that the money allotted for body cameras is nearly triple what the city of Montreal is spending on programs helping unhoused people in 2024.
Trust and transparency
Myriam Lavoie-Moore, a researcher at the Institut de recherche et d'informations socioéconomiques (IRIS), says there weren't any public consultations leading up to the decision and she was surprised to see body cameras in the city budget.
Aside from questions about cost and effectiveness, she says the adoption of the technology raises concerns about who will ultimately have access to recordings.
"The main problem is that we don't know who will control the production of images and sound and who will manage it," she said, adding that this will act as a major barrier to the goal of increasing transparency and gaining trust from marginalized and racialized Montrealers.
Another IRIS researcher, David Risi-Gourdeau, says the city may be trying to slip in funding for new surveillance technology under the radar, but the move deserves a public discussion before being implemented.
The available information is vague, he says, raising more questions than answers.
"It makes me fear that once again this will justify another hike [in police funding], " he said, adding that for 2024 the SPVM is already getting $33.8 million more than it did last year.
"I get the impression that we're continuing to feed a kind of money pit with no way of knowing whether this is really going to have a beneficial impact on the population, and above all, what negative impact could these technologies have on Montrealers."
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