Who is the new head of the metro police in Montreal?

There’s a new bureaucrat in charge of leading the Montreal metro’s special constables. The announcement was made on October 13 by the mayor, who also pledged $6.4 million per year to hire 52 additional officers. Martin Prud’homme, a controversial former executive with the provincial police, will head the Société de transport de Montréal’s (STM) new “Security and Organizational Resilience” division.

Prud’homme initially rose through the ranks of the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), starting as a patrol officer in 1988. After a 21-year career with the SQ, Jean Charest’s Liberal government appointed him associate deputy minister at the Ministry of Public Safety. He became deputy minister there in 2011, a position he held until 2014, when he returned to the SQ.

Prud’homme was thus serving as deputy minister when countless acts of police violence were perpetrated against the student movement protesting tuition hikes. Among the incidents of brutality that made headlines were, in particular, the firing of projectiles at students’ faces—such as Maxence Valade, who lost an eye as a result, and Alexandre Allard, who lost hearing in one ear.

Sûreté du Québec (2014–2021)

In the first year of his tenure with the SQ, Prud’homme had to deal with an escalation of repression targeting the student and labour movements protesting austerity measures, which rocked the province throughout 2015. From January to October 2015 alone, the SQ spent $785,000 on managing the protests.

About a year after taking office, Prud’homme found his police force embroiled in a scandal that would tarnish the Sûreté du Québec’s reputation for the remainder of the 2010s. In October 2015, the television program Enquête aired a report in which several Indigenous women from Val-d’Or, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, alleged that SQ officers had sexually assaulted them.

In support of their colleagues at Station 144, SQ officers then launched a movement in which they wore a red bracelet bearing the station’s number. This bracelet movement came to an end in the fall of 2018.

A brief submitted by the organization Indigenous Women of Quebec shows that Martin Prud’homme never intended to use his managerial authority to force officers to remove these bracelets. He also avoided apologizing for the rapes committed by his officers, according to Radio-Canada.

Martin Prud’homme was suspended in 2019 following a police investigation that led to the arrest of Guy Ouellette, a Quebec Liberal Party member of the National Assembly who had attempted to sabotage a corruption investigation targeting his party. Prud’homme was a friend of Ouellette’s, which sparked widespread speculation when the director general was accused by a prosecutor of professional misconduct in that case.

Prud’homme was ultimately found not guilty of any criminal charges. After becoming the subject of a professional conduct investigation, he responded by filing a civil countersuit. He ultimately reached a settlement with the government in 2021, which ended his employment with the SQ and, at the same time, brought the ethics investigation against him to a close. During his two-year suspension, Prud’homme received approximately $500,000 in salary.

City of Montreal (2022–2026)

In 2022, Prud’homme was hired by the City of Montreal to oversee urban security. His first major task was to lead the selection process for the chief of the Montreal Police Service (SPVM). This led to the hiring of the current chief, Fady Dagher.

In 2023, a report commissioned by the SPVM to address its internal racism problem was made public. It contained one key recommendation: to end random police stops, as these targeted Indigenous people six times more often and Black people 3.5 times more often. The SPVM refused to follow this recommendation and instead focused on internal training.

Prud’homme’s final year in office was marked by police misconduct that led to the death of Abisay Cruz, a 29-year-old father. The SPVM subsequently cracked down on a protest demanding accountability for his death.

Prud’homme lost his position in February 2026, when Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada abolished his post. She nevertheless offered him a position as “strategic advisor” on police matters, which he accepted.

After initially denying in early October that it had hired Prud’homme, the STM later revealed that it had created a new senior management position—that of “security and organizational resilience”—which would be filled by Martin Prud’homme. 

When asked for comment on the hiring of someone with a troubled past like Prud’homme, the STM told The North Star that “Martin Prud’homme has our full confidence to carry out his mandate.” The STM added that he “has been cleared of all criminal allegations under the Police Act.”