Montreal police seek to expand private-sector sales of its services

Private-sector demand for police services has jumped dramatically in recent years and now the city's cops want to capitalize on the healthy market.

The force raked in more than $2 million last year from selling their services to various public-and private-sector clients. It reportedly wants to double that amount this year.

Montreal, like police forces in several other big Canadian cities such as Toronto and Halifax, rent out off-duty officers for sporting or cultural events.

The Montreal force's offerings include patrols for businesses, bodyguards for VIPs and technical advice for film productions.

"We are approached more and more. . . we are seeing an increase in demand for police expertise," said Cmdr. Jimmy Cacchione of the force's business development division.

Montreal police also contract services to smaller municipalities. Most of that business involves training.

Known as pay-duty policing, such programs are seen as valuable revenue generators for cash-strapped departments.

But putting publicly financed police at the disposal of private businesses has left many concerned about who they are answering to.

"Once you start down that road it becomes a very difficult thing to manage," says George Rigakos, an assistant law professor at Ottawa's Carleton University.

"The appearance of a conflict of interest is all that really matters."

Montreal police have so far been able to duck such questions by refusing to make their list of clients available to the public.

The Ontario Provincial Police, however, came under fire in 2005 when it let Mothers Against Drunk Drivers subsidize a roadblock in Ottawa.

Questions were also raised when the RCMP's Alberta branch accepted cash and equipment from the Alberta Energy Company for its investigation into anti-industrial activist Weibo Ludwig.

Rigakos says such incidents have troubling implications.

"Can I hire them to do a service for me, can Greenpeace hire the police to do an investigation of environmental polluters?" he said.

"If the answer is that the police will select who their clients will be on a case-by-case basis, that's problematic because they're obviously using their discretion to decide on who are legitimate and illegitimate consumers of policing security."

The practice of pay-duty policing is controversial even within law enforcement circles.

Calgary cancelled a pay-duty program last year that saw off-duty officers hired out to nightclubs at $90 per hour. The Calgary Police Association backed the cancellation.

The RCMP heavily restricts where officers can work during off-duty hours. Moonlighting by individual officers is prohibited and any other work must be approved by superiors.

"It's a very American-type practice," says Patrick Mehain, who heads the British Columbia RCMP members association.

"It just seems like a foreign concept (in Canada). There's just too much of a chance for a conflict."

Mehain's counterparts in the Montreal Police Brotherhood don't share his stringent opposition to pay-duty policing. They feel it's a good way to boost the force's budget as long as it's done within limits.

"What is important for us is that the aspects of commercialization don't reduce services to citizens," says the union's president, Yves Francoeur.

Montreal police say 80 per cent of the $2.3 million they raised in 2007 came from contracts with other police forces.

Yet Cacchione also acknowledged the force is seeking to update its business model to better take advantage of private sector opportunities.

"We currently don't have open representation in the security market," he said. "Eventually we'll get there but right now we respond to demand."

Montreal police were to face questions about their business plans at a public forum Wednesday night.