Despite the proliferation of shootings in the Montreal region, Operation Centaur is working, assures Minister Geneviève Guilbault, who will meet with police chiefs tomorrow to find out their strategy for the coming summer.

• To read also: Shooting in a family neighborhood of Laval: a girl traumatized by the gunshots

• To read also: Man shot dead in Saint-Michel: murdered two days before his sentence

According to the Minister of Public Security, the operation set up last September to combat gun violence led to the arrest of some 300 people.

"Operation Centaur, it works," says Geneviève Guilbault, citing in particular the arrests and seizures of weapons made this morning in Mauricie.

Other seizures of firearms have taken place since the establishment of this operation with a budget of $90 million.

But a problem remains in the regions of Montreal and Laval, she acknowledges.

“Tomorrow morning, I will have a meeting with the director general of the Sûreté du Québec, that of Montreal, that of Laval and that of Longueuil to see what strategy we should have. I already had one two weeks ago, but to see what strategy they have for this summer, because we anticipate that this summer there could be violence, there was some last summer. , she explains.

The minister wants to know if the police forces in the metropolitan area need “resources” or “money”. "Because it's one thing to put money in, but the strategies have to work," she adds.

"If we need more, we will do more," says the minister.

Gun violence is on the rise again in the Montreal area. Tuesday afternoon in Laval, in broad daylight, a man was targeted by gunfire near young girls who were looking for their cat.

On Wednesday, the ninth homicide of the year on Montreal territory occurred in the Saint-Michel district. A man known to the police community was shot and killed, also in the middle of the afternoon.