A citizen of Magog was angry about the embankment left by a snowplow in his driveway and threw his shovel at the driver of the machine.
Posted at 5:00 am.
Fortunately, the situation has not worsened. It is actually a home video filmed last Tuesday in which city employees take on all roles to make citizens aware of the limits that should not be exceeded.
“It has been confirmed to me that such events occur very frequently in the winter season,” replied a spokeswoman for the municipality of Estrie, Claudia Fortin.
Other scenes were also filmed in which a municipal official is shouted at while handing out a ticket or answering the phone. The city plans to post these videos to its social media next week.
This is the second time Magog has made such a small amateur video. The first series in summer 2022 showed traffic police being garlanded and threatened with a collision by motorists.
The effect is “hard to count,” admits Ms. Fortin. “But we’ve been told that it appears to be less of a problem” since the video campaign aired.
Cepafins
Magog isn't the only city relying on crazy videos to raise awareness among its citizens.
In January, Saint-Colomban released a video in which its mayor, Xavier-Antoine Lalande, reads and comments on disgraceful messages posted on the Facebook page of his municipality of Laurentides.
IMAGE FROM A FACEBOOK VIDEO
Xavier-Antoine Lalande, mayor of Saint-Colomban
“Lots of Boomers (human shit) in this half-breed “village,” Mr. Lalande decodes onscreen.
“It's not an end: I still have a lot of relatives here… but I didn't choose to marry my cousin,” jokes the mayor.
Saint-Colomban was inspired by Mean Tweets read by stars who were the target of hateful comments, as seen on the American show Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Repentigny and Mirabel have adopted the formula called Les Cépafins. The mayor of Mirabel, Patrick Charbonneau, is particularly critical of the language used by the authors, for whom “public works don't mean much.”
IMAGE FROM A FACEBOOK VIDEO
Nicolas Dufour, mayor of Repentigny
“Why are porn sites blocked in the library? I pay taxes,” reads the mayor of Repentigny, Nicolas Dufour, accompanied by the chirping of crickets. “Well that’s all, I don’t think there’s much more to say,” he hilariously concludes.
“There are other cities that follow our approach,” said Mr. Lalande after a meeting of the Council of the Union of Municipalities of Quebec (UMQ) about ten years ago.
Opinions and insights
Many municipalities are observing an increase in hostile gestures towards their employees and are calling on them to report them. Magog has been doing this since the end of 2022. “Between November 2022 and January 2024, 20 cases of rudeness were reported. “There were probably more,” said Ms. Fortin, specifying that they were mostly verbal attacks (yelling, insults, insulting or discriminatory comments).
The city sent a letter summarizing the event to each of these 20 citizens – the manager even stopped by to hand-deliver a letter to a merchant. So far no one has relapsed.
In Trois-Rivières, the legal department issued four notices and two criminal charges last year. And “only since January [la Ville] “I received three emails that were unspeakably vulgar and violent,” General Counsel Alex Hamelin told us in mid-February.
In 17 years in the city, Me Hamelin had never seen anything like it.
We've always had people who can be rude or violent, but with such high levels of frequency and vulgarity, it's something special.
I am Alex Hamelin, Head of Legal in Trois-Rivières
The city court recently fined a citizen who made “extremely misogynistic comments” to a city assessor. “We could negotiate […] With a fight in the mud, women, that’s what you’re good at,” he suggested in particular.
“Even if they were “jokes” for the citizen, the words themselves and the context in which they are uttered must be analyzed,” the judge explained in an oral decision quoted by Me Hamelin.
Trois-Rivières officials have also received death threats twice in recent years. The first defendant pleaded guilty and received a conditional discharge in 2017. The second defendant is awaiting trial.
The police are not always called in such dramatic cases.
“Before Christmas, a citizen came to take his garbage directly to the town hall,” says the mayor of Saint-Colomban. The bags contained “personal information, so it was quite easy to find his address.” “We made sure to send them back to him along with the police. »
Like many municipalities, Saint-Colomban has a zero-tolerance policy. The fine can be up to $273, but only five tickets have been issued in just over five years. “We let them handle smaller cases, […] but we still gave ourselves the means for the day when we thought the limit had been crossed. »
A municipal inspector who was simply stopped at an intersection in a city vehicle has already been insulted by the driver of a van “who said he would attack him like a deer.” There were no complaints.
“These are exceptional cases,” emphasizes the mayor, like all the municipal actors we spoke to. But like many others, Mr. Lalande is noticing “a level of intolerance and aggression fatigue” that he had not experienced since he started in politics in 2013.
Cities, like all employers, are obliged to provide a violence-free workplace (see other text).
Sometimes a public outing is enough to calm the situation.
Last August, the mayor of Saint-Urbain in Charlevoix announced that applications that showed “characteristics of incivility” would no longer be processed. “ [Depuis] On the one hand, I have too much to calculate how many times we politely asked people to call us back when they were less annoyed,” summarizes managing director Martin Guérin.
The same is true in Amherst, in the Laurentians, where a “violent citizen” faces measures ranging from a warning to a police complaint. Since this directive was announced in August 2021, there has only been one written warning, testifies General Director Martin Léger.
“A return of a certain aggressiveness, mainly on the phone, a little at the counter,” however, gave rise to a recent reminder on Facebook.
PICTURE FROM AMHERST TOWNSHIP FACEBOOK PAGE
Amherst Township Publication
A citizen took the opportunity to insult “the girl at the counter.” [sic] » and snow removal “not his trademark.” [sic] “.
“We will leave the comment for a few more days to show those who supported the approach exactly what we are talking about. The example is quite eloquent! », the CEO told us.
Watch a video of the city of Saint-Colomban. Watch a video of the city of Mirabel. Watch a video of the city of Repentigny. Watch a video of the city of Trois-Rivières. Watch videos of Magog city