At the time of the slayings, police said it appeared the suspect, who had a history of mental health problems, had chosen his victims at random and had gotten a firearm illegally.
Fady Dagher told reporters Monday that between Jan. 1 and April 30, there was a single murder committed with a gun in the city, down from five the year before.
"We will not accept, as a government, that Montreal becomes a shooting range for gangs," Quebec Premier François Legault wrote on Twitter in the aftermath of two deadly, broad-daylight shootings in Montreal on Tuesday. Since those incidents, one inside a downtown restaurant, the other in a mall parking lot, officials at all levels of government have taken to social media to denounce gun violence and commit to, often vaguely, take action to, in the words of the premier, "restore order" in the city.