Mayor Valérie Plante wants to better understand “the sequence” of events leading to the closure of the terraces on Peel Street on Friday evening, before calling for “rolling heads”. On Tuesday, a councilor called for the fire director to leave.
“Maybe there are people who want their heads to roll, but I have always operated within the rules. I think it’s important to see what happened, the sequence,” said Ms. Plante at a press scrum in Montreal at the beginning of the afternoon, while she was hot on her heels on the accountability of leaders of the Montreal Fire Safety Service (SIM).
A little earlier, on the social network The latter has been in office since January 2021.
“The more I learn about this case, the more my anger increases. The director of the SIM must resign as soon as possible and his service must be fundamentally reformed,” explained Mr. Sasseville. “The abusive raids and the behavior of the SIM and the Morality Section of the SPVM are killing downtown restaurants,” persisted the advisor.
The day before, Monday, two senior SIM employees, including a section head, were suspended in the wake of this affair. It was then the first disciplinary action since Friday evening, when SIM employees forced the closure of terraces on Peel Street, in the middle of the Grand Prix weekend, the busiest period of the year.
An administrative investigation has also been opened, a process in which the mayor says she does not want to “get involved” at all costs. According to our information, the two employees have been administratively relieved of their duties. They will therefore be assigned to other related tasks for the time being, at least until the ongoing investigation is completed.
In the immediate future, Ms. Plante claims to have found “solutions” to prevent a similar closure of terraces from happening again. However, she did not want to provide these solutions, stressing that she would do so first during a meeting with traders, scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
Another meeting was also held Tuesday morning, in the presence of representatives of the SDC Montréal centre-ville, the SIM and the borough of Ville-Marie. The director of the SDC, Glenn Castanheira, described the exercise as very constructive, while insisting nevertheless on the need to “correct the situation on Peel and especially [to] remedy the unhealthy climate that led to this incident.”
“We are very close to a solution,” said the mayor. We have a solution which, I think, will suit a lot of people, but not everyone either. Even when an issue seems very simple, I can assure you that there is always complexity,” she concluded, certifying in passing that “the borough has done its job” in this matter. .