Maureen Breau's bill divides

Photo: Jacques Boissinot The Canadian Press Public Security Minister Francois Bonnardel at the National Assembly in January

Isabelle Porter in Quebec City

Published at 17:34

• Quebec City

The Legault government's idea of ​​creating a “liaison officer” position to monitor people like Isaac Brouillard Lessard is being criticized because these professionals would be attached to correctional services.

The presence of an officer from correctional services risks creating “distrust,” explained Anne Crocker, director of research and university teaching at the Philippe-Pinel National Institute of Legal Psychiatry. “This perpetuates the idea that recovery is the opposite of public safety.”

If we want to mandate someone to coordinate the follow-up of people who have been found not criminally responsible due to mental disorders, the worker should come from the health and social services sector, she argued.

Public Safety Minister François Bonnardel is currently holding consultations on Bill 66, which he tabled in the wake of two tragedies: the murder of police officer Maureen Breau by Isaac Brouillard Lessard in Louiseville, and the triple murder committed by a young schizophrenic man in 2022 in Montreal and Laval.

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His bill, which consists of a few clauses, essentially aims to give police officers access to more information on people in crisis with whom they may be called upon to intervene.

In the morning, representatives of the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) came to say how much they needed it. This could allow police officers to be “better prepared,” “to adapt the intervention based on the person’s mental state,” explained the chief inspector of the Community Proximity Services Directorate, Jonathan Menard, and his colleague Daniel Boulianne, head of mental health services.

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The issue of confidentiality

Minister Bonnardel says he wanted to limit the stigmatization of people by using the term “liaison agent,” which is not associated with the prisons.

In order to limit breaches of confidentiality, the minister and the police said that the information shared would not come from the medical file.

The police could, however, know if the person has a particular distrust of the police or what their condition is prior to the intervention, the SQ representatives pointed out.

However, Ms. Crocker argued that it was not possible to dissociate “medical and psychosocial factors in risk management” and that is why the risk assessment “must be done by a multidisciplinary team.”

More details will follow.