Montreal police 2025 budget: $824M

On Friday, the SPVM announced a detailed plan for its 2025 multi-million dollar budget, and some community groups aren’t happy.

They say that the $824 million could be put to better use – to meet the needs of Montrealers.

“The message we’re hoping to send is to stop increasing the budget of the SPVM and start taking that money and investing it in community-based organizations that actually already do all these kinds of work and are just trying to answer some of the social needs of the most marginalized people around us,” said Laurent Trépanier Capistran, HIV Info-Rights Service Coordinator, COCQ-SIDA.

The SPVM is already over budget for 2024, and the new budget for 2025 is $824 million—$3 million more than what was allocated for this year. However, the current budget had been readjusted to $826 million earlier this year, knowing that they would spend more due to unforeseen costs.

“I work with facts. I have a police organization, and we often face events that are completely unforeseen,” said Fady Dagher, Chief of the SPVM.

For example, since October 7, 2023, the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Chief of the SPVM, Fady Dagher, says there have been up to 500 protests related to the conflict.

“Just in demonstrations, encampments, visibility plans, $8.9 million, all in overtime, because we had to grant increased visibility to secure both parties and the populations shown. Just with the Square Victoria and McGill encampments, we have just passed half a million dollars. So, you see how quickly it mounts,” said Dagher.

“It’s not because the SPVM wanted to spend; it’s because the SPVM is dependent on unforeseen events, and we have to respond accordingly. Yes, it results in overtime costs, and yes, it leads to a deficit,” he added.

Community groups were outside city hall on Friday to voice how they’d rather see the SPVM budget spent.

“We have a big housing crisis right now. We can see the symptoms of this with the encampments. We can think of Notre-Dame Street, but there are many other encampments in the city. And of course, this is a social need. This is not a need for more security. So I think a lot of the money that we invest in the SPVM, and that we invested in the past year in the SPVM, could go toward this. Or arms reduction, also. We know that we are struggling with arm reduction and the quality of the drugs on the streets. So we need to do better for those people,” said Trépanier Capistran.

The opposition at city hall, Ensemble Montréal, is calling on the Plante administration to fulfill its commitment to fund the deployment of body cameras for the SPVM. They plan to submit a budget amendment to address this.

“The question that I have is, is this administration fulfilling the promises only for the militant base that is going to vote in 2025 or is this administration actually doing the necessary work to ensure the safety and security of Montrealers? And that question, I think will be answered when we see the reaction that the administration will have to the amendment we are proposing next week,” said Alba Zuniga Ramos, City Councillor, Ensemble Montréal, Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve Borough.