CITY PLAN TO ADD MORE STREET CAMERAS IGNITES NEW DEBATE ON
PRIVACY

Video Surveillance to Be Extended to St. Laurent Blvd.

Robot Cam is headed for the Main.

A three-year-old Montreal police pilot project using surveillance
cameras on St. Denis St. to discourage crime is to spread to St.
Laurent Blvd. this year, city councillor Claude Dauphin confirmed yesterday.

The cameras, dubbed Robot Cam when they were first set up on St.
Denis in 2004, were to be installed on St. Laurent last year but
major work on the artery caused a delay, he said.

The rechristened "video surveillance plan" is to see 12 of the
outdoor video cameras placed along St. Laurent between Sherbrooke St.
and Duluth Ave. this summer. An unspecified number are to be placed
farther south, between Rene Levesque Blvd. and Ste. Catherine St.,
Dauphin said.

Another six cameras would be re-installed on St. Denis from Ste.
Catherine north almost to Ontario St. for a fourth straight summer,
he added. It's the same number as last year, he said.

The cameras are removed from the street every fall. The police
department must ask for authorization from the city council's public
safety committee every spring, Dauphin said. He is chairperson of the
committee.

The police department will present this year's plan to the committee,
which meets in public, sometime in March, he said.

"I think it's welcome news for most," said Gordon Bernstein,
president of the Societe de developpement du Boulevard St. Laurent,
adding the cameras act as a deterrent.

"Vandalism is a major problem here."

Vandals have moved beyond drawing graffiti to what some have dubbed
"scratchiti," carving graffiti into a shop's window, Bernstein said.
Some use acid to etch, he added.

Still, police cameras have sparked outcry in many cities about Big
Brother and prompted debate about the balance between civil liberties
and public safety.

"It's an attack on citizens' right to privacy," said Barbara Daubin,
who manages a St. Laurent Blvd. clothing boutique. "I don't think we
should be followed around (by a camera). And I don't think cameras
will make us safer."

Bernstein countered that a camera is no different from having a
plainclothes police officer watching a street.

Quebec's Access to Information Commission has set limits on use of
the police cameras to protect privacy, Dauphin said. For instance,
they can't pivot 360 degrees, he said.

Montreal police statistics show the number of violent crimes fell by
33 per cent from 2003 to 2004 on the stretch of St. Denis that has
the cameras, he added. It dropped a further 10 per cent in 2005, he
said. Drug trafficking declined 15 per cent from 2004 to 2005, he added.

Vandalism, minor disturbances and city bylaw infractions have also be
reduced, he said.

"We've noticed it led to a drop in criminal activity," said Claude
Rainville, executive director of the Societe de developpement du
Quartier Latin.

"It didn't eliminate drug trafficking, but it caused the buyers to
move farther away. So we can say the area is safer."

Still, merchants are dealing with a different social problem now, he
said: homeless people sleeping in their doorways. Ville Marie borough
passed a bylaw in August that prohibits sleeping in public parks
overnight; that has shifted homeless people onto the street, Rainville said.

"So you have merchants calling the police about that now," he said.
"Cameras don't replace police presence."