Macpherson: A tale of two terrorisms in Quebec in October 1970
Don Macpherson GLOBE & MAIL
©
Don Macpherson GLOBE & MAIL
© Provided by The Gazette Forty years to the day after the War Measures Act was invoked by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, a monument to Quebecers incarcerated during that time was unveiled in Montreal, on Saturday October 16, 2010. Police arrested 497 people, of whom only 18 were ever convicted on any charge, Don Macpherson writes.
Monday is the anniversary of the kidnapping of the British trade commissioner in Montreal, James Cross, the start of the 1970 October Crisis. Earlier this year, however, there was another 50th anniversary that went overlooked, that of another historic event that puts the Crisis in perspective.
It’s the Quebec general election of April 29, 1970. Not only were separatists elected to the National Assembly for the first time, the pro-independence Parti Québécois received the second-largest share of the vote, establishing it as the real alternative to the federalist Liberals.
Violence is a great attention-getter, and in the 1960s, riots by indépendantistes and the sometimes-murderous bombs of the terrorist Front de libération du Québec had drawn attention to what was then the real oppression of French-speaking Quebecers.
By October of 1970, however, the progress of the democratic sovereignty movement, behind the leadership of René Lévesque, had eliminated any possible excuse for political violence.
That context is the most glaring omission from Les Rose , the one-sided, pro-FLQ documentary promoted by some indépendantiste politicians and media sympathizers as “history.”
The film spearheads this year’s inevitable revival of the sovereignist campaign for the political rehabilitation of the FLQ, or at least to use the undeniable wrongs committed by the federal government of the day to discredit federalism itself.
For it was not only the FLQ that acted as though the end justified the means. So did Pierre Trudeau, who was then prime minister, in dealing not only with politically motivated criminals, but with his non-violent, democratic nationalist opponents in Quebec.
And the terrorism emergency was not the only occasion on which Trudeau acted that way. Twelve years after the October Crisis, he had a new Constitution imposed on Quebec limiting its powers, over the objections of its democratically elected legislature.
In the Crisis, the great civil libertarian invoked the 1914 War Measures Act for the first time in peacetime. This unleashed police across Quebec, without warrants, to raid thousands of homes, often in the middle of the night with guns drawn. They arrested 497 people, sometimes abusing them and their families. Only 18 were eventually convicted on any charges.
Clearly, Trudeau lied that there was an “apprehended insurrection,” the only pretext for invoking the Act in peacetime; the RCMP told the government there was none. And the prime minister lied again, the journalist Peter C. Newman wrote afterward, when he personally planted a false news story of a “conspiracy” of his leading opponents in Quebec, including Lévesque, to seize power from the province’s federalist government.
Those were the means Trudeau used, but to what end? The most popular theory in Quebec, and the most plausible one, is related to that PQ breakthrough the previous April.
It’s that Trudeau wanted to take advantage of the FLQ’s terrorism to halt the rise of the democratic sovereignty movement by using force, in the form of the police, and falsehood to intimidate and discredit the sovereignists — another form of terrorism, one might say.
As the 50th anniversary of the Crisis approached, nationalists demanded an apology from the present Prime Minister Trudeau for his father’s violation of civil liberties.
(Let’s pause briefly to appreciate this sudden, selective concern for fundamental rights and freedoms on the part of defenders of Quebec’s anti-hijab Bill 21 .)
A wrong on one side does not cancel out one on the other. But the nationalists have caught Trudeau the Younger in a trap he set for himself.
Only recently, while denouncing the toppling of the Macdonald statue in Montreal, he conceded that all past prime ministers are open to criticism, including his father.
And literally Canada’s sorriest prime minister, Justin Trudeau has established a precedent by frequently apologizing for historic injustices.
This apology would be uncomfortable for him to make, and not only because it would hand a victory to political adversaries. But the Trudeau who now speaks for Canada can’t decently refuse to make it, and still pretend to stand for the respect of fundamental rights and freedoms.
Related
Truth and myth: Tracing the roots of the October Crisis
Monday is the anniversary of the kidnapping of the British trade commissioner in Montreal, James Cross, the start of the 1970 October Crisis. Earlier this year, however, there was another 50th anniversary that went overlooked, that of another historic event that puts the Crisis in perspective.
It’s the Quebec general election of April 29, 1970. Not only were separatists elected to the National Assembly for the first time, the pro-independence Parti Québécois received the second-largest share of the vote, establishing it as the real alternative to the federalist Liberals.
Violence is a great attention-getter, and in the 1960s, riots by indépendantistes and the sometimes-murderous bombs of the terrorist Front de libération du Québec had drawn attention to what was then the real oppression of French-speaking Quebecers.
By October of 1970, however, the progress of the democratic sovereignty movement, behind the leadership of René Lévesque, had eliminated any possible excuse for political violence.
That context is the most glaring omission from Les Rose , the one-sided, pro-FLQ documentary promoted by some indépendantiste politicians and media sympathizers as “history.”
The film spearheads this year’s inevitable revival of the sovereignist campaign for the political rehabilitation of the FLQ, or at least to use the undeniable wrongs committed by the federal government of the day to discredit federalism itself.
For it was not only the FLQ that acted as though the end justified the means. So did Pierre Trudeau, who was then prime minister, in dealing not only with politically motivated criminals, but with his non-violent, democratic nationalist opponents in Quebec.
And the terrorism emergency was not the only occasion on which Trudeau acted that way. Twelve years after the October Crisis, he had a new Constitution imposed on Quebec limiting its powers, over the objections of its democratically elected legislature.
In the Crisis, the great civil libertarian invoked the 1914 War Measures Act for the first time in peacetime. This unleashed police across Quebec, without warrants, to raid thousands of homes, often in the middle of the night with guns drawn. They arrested 497 people, sometimes abusing them and their families. Only 18 were eventually convicted on any charges.
Clearly, Trudeau lied that there was an “apprehended insurrection,” the only pretext for invoking the Act in peacetime; the RCMP told the government there was none. And the prime minister lied again, the journalist Peter C. Newman wrote afterward, when he personally planted a false news story of a “conspiracy” of his leading opponents in Quebec, including Lévesque, to seize power from the province’s federalist government.
Those were the means Trudeau used, but to what end? The most popular theory in Quebec, and the most plausible one, is related to that PQ breakthrough the previous April.
It’s that Trudeau wanted to take advantage of the FLQ’s terrorism to halt the rise of the democratic sovereignty movement by using force, in the form of the police, and falsehood to intimidate and discredit the sovereignists — another form of terrorism, one might say.
As the 50th anniversary of the Crisis approached, nationalists demanded an apology from the present Prime Minister Trudeau for his father’s violation of civil liberties.
(Let’s pause briefly to appreciate this sudden, selective concern for fundamental rights and freedoms on the part of defenders of Quebec’s anti-hijab Bill 21 .)
A wrong on one side does not cancel out one on the other. But the nationalists have caught Trudeau the Younger in a trap he set for himself.
Only recently, while denouncing the toppling of the Macdonald statue in Montreal, he conceded that all past prime ministers are open to criticism, including his father.
And literally Canada’s sorriest prime minister, Justin Trudeau has established a precedent by frequently apologizing for historic injustices.
This apology would be uncomfortable for him to make, and not only because it would hand a victory to political adversaries. But the Trudeau who now speaks for Canada can’t decently refuse to make it, and still pretend to stand for the respect of fundamental rights and freedoms.
Related
Truth and myth: Tracing the roots of the October Crisis
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