Sûreté du Québec


The Sûreté du Québec, abbreviated SQ, is the provincial police service for the Canadian province of Quebec. No official English name exists, but the agency's name is sometimes translated to "Quebec Provincial Police" in English-language sources. The headquarters of the Sûreté du Québec are located on Parthenais Street in the city's downtown core of Montreal and the service employs roughly 5,500 officers. SQ is the second largest provincial service and fourth largest service in Canada.

Function

The primary function of the Sûreté du Québec is to enforce provincial laws, some municipal bylaws, the Criminal Code, and many other laws throughout Quebec and to assist municipal police services when needed.
At the local level, the SQ is responsible for providing local police services to municipalities that chose not to have their own, in exchange for payment relative to their size. In other cities, the Sûreté du Québec can also take over crime investigations from municipal services, when required by the Police Act of the province, according to the severity of the crime and the size of the population The SQ is usually present in smaller, rural, or suburban communities, and is not usually visible in the streets of urban centres such as Montreal and Quebec City, whose police services must provide a wide range of services and operations by law. In those cities, however, the Sûreté still has large offices where various investigations are conducted.
At the provincial level, it is responsible for actions such as patrolling the highways of Quebec, preserving the integrity of governmental institutions, coordinating large-scale investigations, and maintaining and sharing the criminal intelligence database of Quebec with other services. In addition, the SQ can provide technical assistance to Quebec's independent investigation unit in any incident involving possible wrongdoing by another police department, such as deaths and serious injuries. Should the SQ be involved in such an incident, assistance, if needed, will be provided either by the police services of Montreal or Quebec City.

History

On February 1, 1870, the Quebec provincial government created the Police provinciale du Québec under the direction of its first commissioner, Judge Pierre-Antoine Doucet. This new service took over the headquarters of the Quebec City municipal police, which were then disbanded, although the city relaunched a municipal service in 1877.
In 1900, two distinct provincial police services were created: the Office of Provincial Detectives of Montreal, in response to a crime wave in that city, and the Revenue Police, whose mission was to collect taxes. In 1902, the government decided that the provincial police should no longer be directed by a judge but by an officer of the police themselves. Augustin McCarthy was chosen as the first chief drawn from the ranks of the police.
In 1922, two headquarters were established, one in Quebec City, headed by McCarthy, and one in Montreal, headed by Dieudonné Daniel Lorrain. The Office of Provincial Detectives of Montreal became part of the general provincial police in that year. The Quebec division included 35 police officers and two detectives.
In 1925, police officers started patrolling on motorcycles. In 1929 and 1930, the structure of the service was reformed and the agency adopted a new name as Sûreté provinciale du Québec which was later shortened to its present name.

Montebello incident

The Sûreté du Québec admitted in August 2007 that they had used undercover police posing as protestors at the 2007 Montebello Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America meetings. This admission was made after a video captured by protestors was widely circulated in the Canadian media and made available on YouTube. It is not uncommon to make use of undercover agents at protests of this kind, but the video was especially controversial because it appeared to show one of the officers carrying a rock, suggesting to some viewers that the police may have been acting as agents provocateurs by inciting violence.

Chiefs and directors-general

Districts

  1. Bas-Saint-Laurent-Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine
  2. Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean
  3. Capitale-Nationale-Chaudière-Appalaches
  4. Mauricie-Centre-du-Québec
  5. Estrie
  6. Montréal-Laval-Laurentides-Lanaudière
  7. Outaouais
  8. Abitibi-Témiscamingue-Nord-du-Québec
  9. Côte-Nord
  10. Montérégie

    Rank badges

Rank insignia of the Sûreté du Québec are on contained on slip-on sleeves, worn on the epaulettes of uniform jacket or shirt shoulders.
Constables do not have any insignia on their uniform. The SQ formerly had the rank of Corporal above Constable rank. Team leaders have an epaulette with the words Chef d'équipe.
RankTeam LeaderSergeantLieutenantCaptainInspector
Insignia
RankChief InspectorDeputy DirectorDirector General of the SQ--
Insignia--

Uniforms

Early uniforms were British in origin, including the use of the custodian helmet, with the kepi later added as well. The service adopted a uniform with a more distinct green tone, as well as a peaked cap, in the 1960s.
The emblem of the service changed in the 1970s, when the old provincial coat of arms gave way to the fleur-de-lis.
In late 2016, Martin Prud'Homme, Director General of the SQ, announced the uniforms would be changed. Shirts and coats will be of a darker shade of olive green; patches, caps, and bulletproof vests will become black, and pants blue-black. One of the justifications for the changes was that the old green uniform was too similar to that of a soldier's.

Fleet

Beginning progressively in 2017, marked patrol cars are set to become black with white doors, on which the word "POLICE" will be more evident.
with post-2017 colors
Cars:
Trucks:
Motorcycles:
Special Vehicles:
Air:
Sea:
Wild:
The standard-issue weapon of the SQ is the Glock pistol, loaded in 9×19mm Parabellum caliber. Various models are adopted, such as the standard Glock 17 Gen 3, compact Glock 19, and sub-compact Glock 26. Tactical officers used the CQB Close Quarter Battle combat rifle, a variant of the Colt Canada C8 rifle.
Prior to the Glock pistols, officers carried.357 Magnum revolvers, which were replaced with the Glock 17 in 2001.

Licence Plate Recognition System

The SQ has been using the LPRS systems since 2009. The objective of the LPRS is to make the streets and highways safer by removing vehicles not authorized to be on the road. The hotlist plate database can consist of the following types:
The LPRS are installed on 10 Sûreté du Québec vehicles. The LPRS integrator is Gtechna. Gtechna is primarily a citations issuance and management software developer which integrates mission critical technologies such as Licence Plate Recognition to streamline the enforcement of moving and parking violations.