It's difficult for me. I lived in Montreal for 23 years. I come from Britain, where I was working in the Home Office. I have tried to understand Quebec as an outsider, but I hope now as a Montrealer, and I would hope to see myself as a Quebecker.
Our centre works very closely with the Government of Quebec. We had the honour of having Serge Ménard, when he was minister, as the president of the organization for Quebec. We work with the police. We work a lot with the Montreal police. We work very closely with the Sûreté du Québec. We work with the City of Montreal. Many visitors come to see us; this week we have Belgians and some Guatemalans coming, and someone from Australia, and we take them everywhere to show them the projects and to meet the significant people in Montreal. We work a great deal with the Province of Quebec, which is one of our main supporters.
I think it's always about perceptions. In terms of levels of criminality, in many ways crime levels are much lower in Quebec and Montreal than in the rest of Canada. I had a phone call from the press last year to ask why there was such a low level of homicides in Montreal; it was way down, down to the levels of the 1970s, and in Quebec City last year, there was not one single homicide, so again the journalist was asking why crime levels were so low.
I think there's always a problem of perception about what is going on, and just as a sociologist, there is the issue of the relations between people living within a linguistic and cultural area for a long period of time. You know, there are these discussions, which are kind of fun; they're important and they're interesting. I don't know the reality of the extent to which problems of corruption and all of these things happen elsewhere, but I suspect they do happen.
I can't answer your question, basically, but I think it's an interesting one.