Fifty years since the October Crisis
October 10, 2020 9:49 AM Subscribe
October 5, 1970, British trade commissioner James Cross is abducted in Montreal by a small band of Quebec nationalists, the Liberation Cell of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ). October 10, Pierre Laporte, a minister in the Quebec Liberal government, is kidnapped by the Chénier cell, triggering an emergency generally known in Canada as the October Crisis, which has repercussions to this day.
Quebec was a severely Catholic place for several centuries, but the mood lingered into the mid 20th century under the repressive hand of Maurice Duplessis, widely known as Le Chef. After his death in 1960 things changed quickly. A Liberal government was elected and the Quiet Revolution began, secularizing education, health and social services and instituting a welfare state to replace the previous ubiquity of the Catholic church in all these areas.
Some evidently didn't feel change was happening quickly enough. The Rassemblement pour l'Indépendance Nationale was launched in 1960 and eventually morphed into the Front de libération du Québec, the FLQ, which carried out a string of bombings and armed robberies and publication of various manifestoes throughout the 1960s that would culminate in the two abductions in October 1970.
Following the abductions, the latest FLQ manifesto was printed in the media and read on Radio-Canada. English version of the manifesto and in PDF format with annotations.
Even before Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked Canada's War Measures act, soldiers were seen in the streets of Montreal, brought in to guard federal installations. Quebec's National Assembly voted unanimously to request Trudeau to pass the Act. On October 16, nearly 500 people were rounded up in a wide sweep of people, some of whom had little or no connection to the movement – artists and musicians, journalists and union activists among their number. This act is still a sore point with many in Quebec, with some wanting to hear an apology from the current prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Pierre's son. Justin has shown no sign of doing so.
On October 17, 1970, the murder of Pierre Laporte was announced by the Chénier cell, and the location of his body noted on a crude map left in a public place. James Cross was rescued after 59 days' captivity, and his captors allowed to depart for Cuba as they had demanded; some say the captors wanted to murder Cross as well. (James Cross is still alive in England at 98.)
The main players in the October Crisis gradually returned to Quebec, where some did a little jail time, and some became respected members of Quebec's cultural elite. Quebec held two referendums – 1980 and 1995 – to ask whether the population wanted Quebec to secede. Both were defeated, the second one narrowly. The Parti Québécois, the provincial party dedicated to separating Quebec from Canada, still exists, and elected its tenth chief, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, yesterday.
Quebec was a severely Catholic place for several centuries, but the mood lingered into the mid 20th century under the repressive hand of Maurice Duplessis, widely known as Le Chef. After his death in 1960 things changed quickly. A Liberal government was elected and the Quiet Revolution began, secularizing education, health and social services and instituting a welfare state to replace the previous ubiquity of the Catholic church in all these areas.
Some evidently didn't feel change was happening quickly enough. The Rassemblement pour l'Indépendance Nationale was launched in 1960 and eventually morphed into the Front de libération du Québec, the FLQ, which carried out a string of bombings and armed robberies and publication of various manifestoes throughout the 1960s that would culminate in the two abductions in October 1970.
Following the abductions, the latest FLQ manifesto was printed in the media and read on Radio-Canada. English version of the manifesto and in PDF format with annotations.
Even before Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked Canada's War Measures act, soldiers were seen in the streets of Montreal, brought in to guard federal installations. Quebec's National Assembly voted unanimously to request Trudeau to pass the Act. On October 16, nearly 500 people were rounded up in a wide sweep of people, some of whom had little or no connection to the movement – artists and musicians, journalists and union activists among their number. This act is still a sore point with many in Quebec, with some wanting to hear an apology from the current prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Pierre's son. Justin has shown no sign of doing so.
On October 17, 1970, the murder of Pierre Laporte was announced by the Chénier cell, and the location of his body noted on a crude map left in a public place. James Cross was rescued after 59 days' captivity, and his captors allowed to depart for Cuba as they had demanded; some say the captors wanted to murder Cross as well. (James Cross is still alive in England at 98.)
The main players in the October Crisis gradually returned to Quebec, where some did a little jail time, and some became respected members of Quebec's cultural elite. Quebec held two referendums – 1980 and 1995 – to ask whether the population wanted Quebec to secede. Both were defeated, the second one narrowly. The Parti Québécois, the provincial party dedicated to separating Quebec from Canada, still exists, and elected its tenth chief, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, yesterday.
I've never understood why so many Canadians love "Just watch me" when he was referring to how far he would ignore civil rights.
("There is no place for the government in the bedrooms of the nation" is a little less snappy, but a much better sentiment in my opinion.)
posted by Canageek at 10:12 AM on October 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
("There is no place for the government in the bedrooms of the nation" is a little less snappy, but a much better sentiment in my opinion.)
posted by Canageek at 10:12 AM on October 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
The RIN absolutely did not morph into the FLQ. That is like saying the Democratic Party morphed into the KKK. There were certainly people who identified at one point in time with both groups, but the RIN was a political party, always dedicated to peaceful and legal independence for Quebec.
How can you trust anything written in this post if they make such an easy mistake, and a common xenophobic trope levied against the Québécois (that due to episodes of violence in our past, that any sort of association with a separatist movement is a support of the FLQ).
posted by papineau at 10:52 AM on October 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
How can you trust anything written in this post if they make such an easy mistake, and a common xenophobic trope levied against the Québécois (that due to episodes of violence in our past, that any sort of association with a separatist movement is a support of the FLQ).
posted by papineau at 10:52 AM on October 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
I've never understood why so many Canadians love "Just watch me" when he was referring to how far he would ignore civil rights.
He was disturbingly flippant about it, and it's a pretty shameful moment in Canadian politics. But I didn't get to that opinion on my own. Seeing Michel Brault's film Les Ordres (trailer here) many years ago influenced my thinking about it in a very big way.
a common xenophobic trope levied against the Québécois
Yep. Having grown up around those attitudes toward Quebec and the French language, I can say that this is exactly the reason "Just watch me" played so well (and still does) in many parts of the country.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:05 AM on October 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
He was disturbingly flippant about it, and it's a pretty shameful moment in Canadian politics. But I didn't get to that opinion on my own. Seeing Michel Brault's film Les Ordres (trailer here) many years ago influenced my thinking about it in a very big way.
a common xenophobic trope levied against the Québécois
Yep. Having grown up around those attitudes toward Quebec and the French language, I can say that this is exactly the reason "Just watch me" played so well (and still does) in many parts of the country.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:05 AM on October 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
That summer my Great Aunt Joy was visiting from England. She wasn't phased by the political situation as she was a magnificent great aunt who could howl out fantastic air raid and all clear sirens. At that time the IRA was leaving bombs around the place in London, so bomb scares were a regular part of the scenery for her.
Two of us kids attended Westmount Park Elementary School and our apartment building was right behind an armoury on Saint Catherine Street. One summer day we went running across the street to the municipal swimming pool in our bathing suits and flip flops. When we came back we found Great Aunt Joy and both my parents sitting on the grass with our cat in a harness. A purse had been found behind the armoury and no one was allowed back in the building until they blew it up. This was terrible because I desperately needed to go pee and couldn't until the bomb squad and all the soldiers had dealt with the suspected bomb. They didn't let anyone see it get exploded either. They moved it to a can in the parking lot and blew it up there. All we heard was an anticlimactic dull boom.
There wasn't much left of it, but there was definitely no explosive material in it, so the conclusion was that the purse had been stolen, the money pulled out of it and it had been stashed there in the lane to hide it.
Once school resumed there were the bomb threats. Our school was anglo and Westmount was a neighbourhood that made a suitable target, so there were plenty of bomb threats. They required us to all troop out just like a fire drill and sit on the playing field in rows while the firefighters and Mr. Tedford the principal search the building. This happened at least once a week. We spent quite a few hours sitting there because back in those days anyone could make a call from a phone booth and be long gone by the time the cops got there and be impossible to trace. Soft supporters of the FLQ phoned in bomb threats to all kinds of places. It was good for lulz.
My father worked for General Foods in Ville LaSalle, the company that manufactured Post cereals, Jell-o, Maxwell House Coffee and Baker's Chocolate. One Friday afternoon they too got a bomb threat so everyone had to be evacuated out of the plant. Since the day shift would be over before the whole place could be searched they sent everybody home early.
The next Friday there was another bomb threat, and again they sent everyone home.
The Friday after that the caller phone at noon, but this time they made everyone wait outside until the place was searched, so they didn't get to go home early. After that every Friday the caller made his threatening call, timing it so that there was no point letting people stay. It was not too difficult to catch him, as he was sneaking out of work to a phone call within sprinting distance. He was not, in fact, an FLQ supporter, just a guy who wanted to get a bit more time off on the weekend.
When they found Pierre Laporte, strangled to death with his own holy medal they stationed military sentries on different doorsteps in our neighbourhood.
My parents had been quite active in left wing politics until having to raise kids had sidelined their priorities, but when the War Measures Act was passed they were concerned about being picked up and held indefinitely without charge as Communist Sympathizers, so the wrote up a document granting custody to my Great Aunt Joy in that eventuality, and she promised to take the first flight right out to take charge of us, should that happen. My parents were at best sesquilingual but they figured they were at risk of arrest still given the broad scope of the Act.
Hallowe'en was cancelled in Westmount that year, because everyone was frightened that the evil terrorists would grab little Anglo children off the street at night. But the dismay was so great among the young who craved candy, and the old who adored giving the candy out, that Hallowe'en was reinstated and great troops of children were organized to be escorted by fathers. My parents, a great deal more insouciant than most, allowed us to go without escort as usual, merely enjoining us to be careful of people in cars.
The enormous troops could not cover territory as fast or as efficiently as three small girls who could sprint in zig-zags from lighted doorway to lighted doorway. As the evening wore on it became clear to many of the waiting householders that they would maybe get one large troop of kids or none, and they had over supplied themselves with candy. They did not ration themselves to try to make it last until midnight, but put great lavish fistfuls into our bags. We brought home embarrassing great amounts of candy. It was The Best Hallowe'en Ever.
The best and greatest adventure happened during the winter on a school day. I was in gym class and I had forgotten my sneakers. In those days we had tunics and little blouses. On gym day we wore shorts under the tunics so that when it was time for gym all we had to do was peel the tunics off and swap our school shoes for our sneakers. In those day we had school shoes that had smooth leather soles and once you started running in them there was no braking. You either skidded until you ran out of momentum, or you collided with something. If you attempted braking you were pretty much certain to take a tumble. Forgetting sneakers was not an uncommon occurrence. Originally if you forgot your sneakers the teacher was cross and you sat out gym period on the bench, but since cunning children who did not want to get assaulted with a dodge ball would "forget" their sneakers, the teachers remained cross, but made us take our shoes and socks off and participate in our bare feet.
So of course, as I was happily pattering round the gym with my little pink feet on the wooden gymnasium floor, a call was received at the office from someone with a cloth over the mouthpiece of the receiver (to disguise their voice) who shouted that they had placed a bomb in the school! (They had to shout, as they were muffled by the cloth.)
The fire alarm rang and we raced to line up at the gym's back door - no one was allowed to go back for their things for obvious reasons - and out we were marched into a foot and a half of snow and a heavy wind whirling whiteness everywhere: Short sleeved blouses, little blue shorts and b-b-bare f-feet. We ran down the street, at the teacher's shouted command, through the snow, through deep ruts left on the road by the car tires, and into the vestibule of an apartment building up the street. Everyone was crammed in there, probably thirty-four kids and the teacher and the gym instructor. And there we stayed for the hour and a half it took to search the building, shivering violently and giggling like mad.
It was not until some years later that I found out that my father's cousin David had used to work at the stock exchange downtown where he was a janitor, and that when the bomb went off there he was close enough to it to be injured and to suffer permanent significant hearing loss. It was at least a decade after the October Crisis was over before my father mentioned it to us.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:27 AM on October 10, 2020 [43 favorites]
Two of us kids attended Westmount Park Elementary School and our apartment building was right behind an armoury on Saint Catherine Street. One summer day we went running across the street to the municipal swimming pool in our bathing suits and flip flops. When we came back we found Great Aunt Joy and both my parents sitting on the grass with our cat in a harness. A purse had been found behind the armoury and no one was allowed back in the building until they blew it up. This was terrible because I desperately needed to go pee and couldn't until the bomb squad and all the soldiers had dealt with the suspected bomb. They didn't let anyone see it get exploded either. They moved it to a can in the parking lot and blew it up there. All we heard was an anticlimactic dull boom.
There wasn't much left of it, but there was definitely no explosive material in it, so the conclusion was that the purse had been stolen, the money pulled out of it and it had been stashed there in the lane to hide it.
Once school resumed there were the bomb threats. Our school was anglo and Westmount was a neighbourhood that made a suitable target, so there were plenty of bomb threats. They required us to all troop out just like a fire drill and sit on the playing field in rows while the firefighters and Mr. Tedford the principal search the building. This happened at least once a week. We spent quite a few hours sitting there because back in those days anyone could make a call from a phone booth and be long gone by the time the cops got there and be impossible to trace. Soft supporters of the FLQ phoned in bomb threats to all kinds of places. It was good for lulz.
My father worked for General Foods in Ville LaSalle, the company that manufactured Post cereals, Jell-o, Maxwell House Coffee and Baker's Chocolate. One Friday afternoon they too got a bomb threat so everyone had to be evacuated out of the plant. Since the day shift would be over before the whole place could be searched they sent everybody home early.
The next Friday there was another bomb threat, and again they sent everyone home.
The Friday after that the caller phone at noon, but this time they made everyone wait outside until the place was searched, so they didn't get to go home early. After that every Friday the caller made his threatening call, timing it so that there was no point letting people stay. It was not too difficult to catch him, as he was sneaking out of work to a phone call within sprinting distance. He was not, in fact, an FLQ supporter, just a guy who wanted to get a bit more time off on the weekend.
When they found Pierre Laporte, strangled to death with his own holy medal they stationed military sentries on different doorsteps in our neighbourhood.
My parents had been quite active in left wing politics until having to raise kids had sidelined their priorities, but when the War Measures Act was passed they were concerned about being picked up and held indefinitely without charge as Communist Sympathizers, so the wrote up a document granting custody to my Great Aunt Joy in that eventuality, and she promised to take the first flight right out to take charge of us, should that happen. My parents were at best sesquilingual but they figured they were at risk of arrest still given the broad scope of the Act.
Hallowe'en was cancelled in Westmount that year, because everyone was frightened that the evil terrorists would grab little Anglo children off the street at night. But the dismay was so great among the young who craved candy, and the old who adored giving the candy out, that Hallowe'en was reinstated and great troops of children were organized to be escorted by fathers. My parents, a great deal more insouciant than most, allowed us to go without escort as usual, merely enjoining us to be careful of people in cars.
The enormous troops could not cover territory as fast or as efficiently as three small girls who could sprint in zig-zags from lighted doorway to lighted doorway. As the evening wore on it became clear to many of the waiting householders that they would maybe get one large troop of kids or none, and they had over supplied themselves with candy. They did not ration themselves to try to make it last until midnight, but put great lavish fistfuls into our bags. We brought home embarrassing great amounts of candy. It was The Best Hallowe'en Ever.
The best and greatest adventure happened during the winter on a school day. I was in gym class and I had forgotten my sneakers. In those days we had tunics and little blouses. On gym day we wore shorts under the tunics so that when it was time for gym all we had to do was peel the tunics off and swap our school shoes for our sneakers. In those day we had school shoes that had smooth leather soles and once you started running in them there was no braking. You either skidded until you ran out of momentum, or you collided with something. If you attempted braking you were pretty much certain to take a tumble. Forgetting sneakers was not an uncommon occurrence. Originally if you forgot your sneakers the teacher was cross and you sat out gym period on the bench, but since cunning children who did not want to get assaulted with a dodge ball would "forget" their sneakers, the teachers remained cross, but made us take our shoes and socks off and participate in our bare feet.
So of course, as I was happily pattering round the gym with my little pink feet on the wooden gymnasium floor, a call was received at the office from someone with a cloth over the mouthpiece of the receiver (to disguise their voice) who shouted that they had placed a bomb in the school! (They had to shout, as they were muffled by the cloth.)
The fire alarm rang and we raced to line up at the gym's back door - no one was allowed to go back for their things for obvious reasons - and out we were marched into a foot and a half of snow and a heavy wind whirling whiteness everywhere: Short sleeved blouses, little blue shorts and b-b-bare f-feet. We ran down the street, at the teacher's shouted command, through the snow, through deep ruts left on the road by the car tires, and into the vestibule of an apartment building up the street. Everyone was crammed in there, probably thirty-four kids and the teacher and the gym instructor. And there we stayed for the hour and a half it took to search the building, shivering violently and giggling like mad.
It was not until some years later that I found out that my father's cousin David had used to work at the stock exchange downtown where he was a janitor, and that when the bomb went off there he was close enough to it to be injured and to suffer permanent significant hearing loss. It was at least a decade after the October Crisis was over before my father mentioned it to us.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:27 AM on October 10, 2020 [43 favorites]
"Just watch me" is a great quote and I unapologetically love it.
At the point of the October Crisis there had already been years and years of bombings, and the hostage-taking of politicians was a sudden escalation. There were an unknown number of terrorist cells, not imaginary Antifa supersoldiers but actual terrorist cells who had armed themselves by raiding military armories and were openly issuing political demands backed by violence, including indiscriminate violence against civillians.
The provincial legislature voted to ask the federal government to impose martial law because there was genuine uncertainty over whether the democratically elected provincial government was in danger of being overthrown. The memory has been diluted by the following decades of political parties advocating for separatism through peaceful and democratic means but the FLQ was a real attempt at insurrection.
In this extreme environment of fear and uncertainty, Trudeau asserted - not just confidently but casually and like a total asshole - that he would not be out-escalated if the terrorists escalated further. People were afraid - if the FLQ can do this, what's next? "Just watch me" stands up to that fear and pushes it back. That's why people love it.
posted by allegedly at 12:03 PM on October 10, 2020 [11 favorites]
At the point of the October Crisis there had already been years and years of bombings, and the hostage-taking of politicians was a sudden escalation. There were an unknown number of terrorist cells, not imaginary Antifa supersoldiers but actual terrorist cells who had armed themselves by raiding military armories and were openly issuing political demands backed by violence, including indiscriminate violence against civillians.
The provincial legislature voted to ask the federal government to impose martial law because there was genuine uncertainty over whether the democratically elected provincial government was in danger of being overthrown. The memory has been diluted by the following decades of political parties advocating for separatism through peaceful and democratic means but the FLQ was a real attempt at insurrection.
In this extreme environment of fear and uncertainty, Trudeau asserted - not just confidently but casually and like a total asshole - that he would not be out-escalated if the terrorists escalated further. People were afraid - if the FLQ can do this, what's next? "Just watch me" stands up to that fear and pushes it back. That's why people love it.
posted by allegedly at 12:03 PM on October 10, 2020 [11 favorites]
Ah yes, the retort.
How does one one say, in Quebec French, "fuck around and find out"?
(an idiom for 'how will you respond to these provovations?' 'continue the provocations, and I will show you my response indeed')
posted by bartleby at 12:51 PM on October 10, 2020 [4 favorites]
How does one one say, in Quebec French, "fuck around and find out"?
(an idiom for 'how will you respond to these provovations?' 'continue the provocations, and I will show you my response indeed')
posted by bartleby at 12:51 PM on October 10, 2020 [4 favorites]
Great post, zadcat.
posted by doctornemo at 1:05 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by doctornemo at 1:05 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
I joke that I grew up a refugee from FLQ terrorism because it seems ridiculous in the wider context of refugees in the world fleeing serious risk but it is true. My family relocated to Mississauga from Montreal in the early 70s as part of the corporate HQ relocations triggered by the FLQ's activity. While the conditions were already primed by the declining value of being near the head of the St. Lawrence River the FLQ was the nudge that triggered the corporate exodus avalanche and significantly altered the course of my life.
posted by srboisvert at 2:01 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 2:01 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
For a time I lived in Montreal. A woman I dated spent her childhood there and her earlist memomory, she would have been about 3 and half years old, was of a heavy duty amoured vehicle driving past her house in Westmount.
As far as ''Just Watch Me' goes, I like the clip, even though I abhor the War Measures Act and its use, because of the rare honesty in the exchange between him and CBC reporter Tim Ralfe, an obviously very bright person as well.
The fact that a sitting PM could be challenged like that by the press and respond with the exchange becoming an off the cuff short debate on freedom vs security in a democracy is something that needs to happen as much as possible with our leaders. It doesn't because of the stage managed political culture we live in, and it's detrimental to democracy.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 2:23 PM on October 10, 2020 [10 favorites]
As far as ''Just Watch Me' goes, I like the clip, even though I abhor the War Measures Act and its use, because of the rare honesty in the exchange between him and CBC reporter Tim Ralfe, an obviously very bright person as well.
The fact that a sitting PM could be challenged like that by the press and respond with the exchange becoming an off the cuff short debate on freedom vs security in a democracy is something that needs to happen as much as possible with our leaders. It doesn't because of the stage managed political culture we live in, and it's detrimental to democracy.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 2:23 PM on October 10, 2020 [10 favorites]
As a footnote to what srboisvert said, most symbolically (as far as corporate Canada goes), the Bank of Montreal technically still has a head office in Montreal, but in practical terms the bulk of its head office operations were moved to Toronto in the late 1970s.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:27 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:27 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
I mean these were guys kidnappping officials, not protesters or getting elected themselves à la referendum, so ya just watch me.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:30 PM on October 10, 2020
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:30 PM on October 10, 2020
The FLQ, like the pIRA around the same time, took up arms to fight against persecution. The 1964 raid on International Firearms Company a few years before sparked from lack of employment and opportunities for French-speaking Canadians.
posted by scruss at 2:53 PM on October 10, 2020
posted by scruss at 2:53 PM on October 10, 2020
the bulk of its head office operations were moved to Toronto in the late 1970s.
Corporate exodus to TO messed with Quebec's economy. Some vintage Victorian architecture was saved from re-development in the old bank district as a result.
posted by ovvl at 3:39 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
Corporate exodus to TO messed with Quebec's economy. Some vintage Victorian architecture was saved from re-development in the old bank district as a result.
posted by ovvl at 3:39 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
Recall: How to Start a Revolution
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 8:49 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 8:49 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
Fuck Trudeau.
The FLQ violence was unacceptable , but inflicting random state violence on people who’s opinion you don’t share. That’s fascism.
And screw his son too who’ll appologize for anything but cannot even consider how wrong his father was.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:52 PM on October 10, 2020
The FLQ violence was unacceptable , but inflicting random state violence on people who’s opinion you don’t share. That’s fascism.
And screw his son too who’ll appologize for anything but cannot even consider how wrong his father was.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:52 PM on October 10, 2020
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