DCHP-2

SQ [εs kju:] DCHP-2 (October 2016)

• n. — Quebec, Administration

  the acronym for Sûreté du Québec, Quebec's provincial police force (see Image 1).

  Type: 1. Origin — The provincial police force of Quebec was formerly called Sûreté provinciale du Québec; the name was shortened in 1968 to Sûreté du Québec (see Canadian Encylopedia reference). The term is abbreviated to SQ in both English and French, but generally pronounced in the English way [εs kju:] in Quebec English. The term appears to be most prevalent in Canada (see Chart 1).
  See also COD-2, s.v. "SQ", which is marked "Cdn".

  See also:   Regie  Charter of the French Language  Oka ((2))  

  • Since Quebec has been a French-language province since the passage of the Charter of the French Language in 1977, provincial government departments and institutions have no official English names. Anglophone Quebeckers usually adopt and integrate the French names. Only occasionally, unofficial translations are used, e.g., "Quebec Provincial Police" for Sûreté du Québec perhaps after the model of the Ontario Provincial Police.

  • 1978  Messrs Lalonde/Normand/Beaudoin seem to feel however that the federal Solicitor-General, due to his additional national security role, could explain/justify/legitimize the Bricole affair (the code name for the break-in) as a matter of national security in which MUCPD (Montreal police) and SQ (Quebec police) supported the RCMP. 
  • 1988  A 41-year-old Richelieu Valley man, suspected of molesting as many as 30 children including his 10-year-old daughter, was found dead in his cell at the Parthenais detention centre yesterday. The homicide squad of the Surete du Quebec's major crimes division is investigating the death, described by SQ officials as "suspicious." The dead man's lawyer is calling for a Quebec Justice Department inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his client's death. 
  • 1998  Statistics from the Surete du Quebec show that between 1996 and Nov. 30 of this year, the number of inebriated drivers that have been pulled over, on territory patrolled by the SQ across the province, has declined by 22 per cent. 
  • 2009  Kahnawake Peacekeeper investigator Ed Stacey has enlisted the aid of the RCMP, the SQ and Ontario and Montreal police forces, missing person's networks in Canada and the United States, sniffer dogs, and divers on several occasions to search the St. Lawrence Seaway and River that border his territory. 
  • 2013  About 16 Sûreté du Québec officers were dispatched to the logging town of Opitciwan at midnight Sunday, just moments after the funding agreement expired. The SQ is operating out of the local police station, answering 911 calls, going out on patrols and doing the work ordinarily reserved for Opitciwan's 17-officer police force. 
  • 2016  Sources say the federal government is willing to increase the reserve's policing budget but they encountered resistance from Coiteux's department. It costs the province significantly more to replace the department with SQ officers than it would to pay for modest funding increases for the aboriginal police force - which employs a number of Opitciwanborn officers and detectives, the band council argues.