SQ officers were paid time and a half to work G7 summit
Hundreds of provincial police officers assigned to last summer's G7 summit were being paid time and a half, Radio-Canada has learned.
The federal government announced the dates of the summit more than a year ahead of time.
However, documents obtained through an access to information request reveal that despite the advance warning, 290 Sûreté du Québec officers booked off the week of June 3 to 10.
The protests took place June 7 to 9 in Quebec City and outside the summit, in La Malbaie, Que.
Sûreté du Québec management had to ask 232 officers who were on vacation to come in to work.
Since they were on overtime, they were paid time and a half. It is not clear exactly how much all that overtime cost taxpayers, or how many SQ officers in total worked during the summit.
The police presence at the event has been criticized as being excessive, with one group saying the number of officers and level to which they were armed hindered people's ability to protest.
Retired SQ deputy director Marcel Savard, who used to organize police during large events, said vacation requests are usually scheduled in February.
He questioned why the SQ was so short-staffed for an event it knew about months before that.
Lt. Jason Allard explained the SQ cannot block vacation requests, regardless of the time of the year.
The Quebec City police service can, however: it told its officers that during the summit, it would be all hands on deck, and didn't allow anyone to take vacation.
Ian Lafrenière, a CAQ MNA and former police officer, said he won't give his opinion until he knows more.
"I won't judge about the appearance. I need facts, I need details, so I will wait for the SQ to give details."
The Couillard Liberals were in power at the time. Interim Liberal leader Pierre Arcand said it's easy to criticize how things were planned in hindsight.
"I think that in this particular case, you can't blame the government at the time for trying to make sure things go smoothly."
