Well, if they actually did something more useful...

I just stumbled across this article regarding the decision an inquiry about the Montreal metro security guards.

I personally believe that these security guards are pretty useless, not because they are not scary looking or whatever, but because they spend too much time with crap jobs like harassing people at the turnstiles of Berri-UQAM, and then ticketing them for not their carte privilège.

Let me explain this carte privilège situation to people who may not be familiar with the Montreal transit system. Students who are full-time students at a college (or vocation/trade school) or a university full-time between the ages of 21 - 25 have the right to this card, which they have to pay an amount for at the beginning of the school year. Then for the entire school year, they have the right to use the discount rate on passes (not tickets, just passes). However, if someone is caught using a pass without the privilege card, they will be subject to a fine of $130 + fees or something outrageous like that.

I use the metro pretty frequently, and I always see lots of security guards harassing people at the Berri-UQAM turnstiles for their cards. I myself, have been harassed by one of these people while using my pass (and privilege card). In fact, they spend so much time doing this crap (so what if a student wants to save a bit of money because they are full-time and they really can't afford to pay the full adult pass because they are above the age of 25?), that they neglect the bigger problems... I have seen many people just get into metro stations without paying, I have seen people putting graffiti on metro station property, I have seen people holding metro doors, I have seen people smoking on metro platforms, but of course, the metro security guards and police just happen to not be there. Why? Because they are too busy at Berri-UQAM harassing good citizens. In my opinion, the first four offences are so much more worse than someone not using a carte privilege. Cracking down on graffiti would save the STM a lot of money, they spend about 2 million a year repairing damage from graffiti (like painting over it, or cleaning it). They had an announcement that passengers are on average late by 5 minutes due to people playing with the metro doors and holding the doors. That would be an easy ticket and source of "income" right there, people who hold the doors. I have seen more people being harassed for their privilege card than people being harassed and/or ticketed for holding the metro doors.

I was once at a metro station and saw some homeless person enter the metro system without paying (he just pushed the turn stile so that he could squeeze through). I told the ticket booth operator, and the response I got was "Qu'est-ce que vous voulez que je fasse, monsieur?" or "What do you want me to do about it?" Why weren't the metro security people there to stop him and detain him until the police showed up? Well, I can venture a hypothesis... Maybe they were at Berri-UQAM harassing (or waiting to harass) good citizens...

Stop harassing people about their privilege cards, and get cracking on the bigger problems!