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The recent North American summit held at Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello in the small western Québec communiy of Montebello has gained no small amount of international attention for its addressing of the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, with Montréal magazine Maisonneuve's cautious assessment that some things seem to have been achieved quietly probably lasting as a historical judgement. In Canada, however, the Montebello summit has gained attention because of what might well have been a police attempt to infiltrate and subvert peaceful protests.
Briefly put, protest leaders argued that on Monday the 21st, as shown in the YouTube-hosted video displayed above, undercover cops tried to incite violence, appearing in masks and with one of the three men holding a rock--a leader can be heard in the video, yelling at the man to put the rock down. The Sûreté du Québec, the Québec provincial police force, has since confirmed that these men were infiltrators but denied that they were sent to provoke a clash. This claim has been met with skepticism, and not only because of the Sûreté's dubious record, which includes the accidental incitement of the Oka Crisis of 1990.
At this distance and without more information--copies of police orders, say, or more video, or the fulfillment of calls for a public inquiry--it's impossible for me to judge the claims of nefarious poilice activity. What I can say is that the Montebello incident fits into a recent pattern of police malfeasance in Canada, of which the most notable has been the RCMP's complicity in deporting Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar from the United States to Syria, where ungrounded suspicions that he was a terrorist sympathizer caused him to be imprisoned and intermittantly tortured nearly two years. This pattern does have historic roots within Canada--in the 1970s, inquiries revealed that the RCMP committed crimes in its post-FLQ surveillance of Québec separatists, including breaking-and-entering the offices of separatist organizations to copy their confidential material and at least one barn-burning. This pattern of police malfeasance also fits into what some people have identified as a pattern of police action against people peacefully protesting certain globalization-associated iniatives, like the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America that was discussed at Montebello, on the pattern of the RCMP's pepper-spraying of protesters at the 1997 APEC conference in Vancouver.
From a specifically Canadian perspective, this all further complicated by Montebello's association with what seems to be the slow movement towards a North American Community that would inevitably be dominated by a hegemonic United States that has demonstrated, at Guantanamo and elsewhere, a willingness to militarize police matters and to police public discourse. It certainly doesn't help that one of the matters discussed at Montebello was policing and the creation of a North American security perimeter, complete with centralized databases. To be sure, I myself agree with many of many of the purported goals of a North American confederalism--integrated labour markets can be a good thing, likewise transnational governance--but to the extent that this confederalism is illegitimate, outside of public visibility or conducted for partisan (or foreign) political goals, I'm hostile. I don't think that I'm at all alone on this among Canadians, either.
Thoughts?
Briefly put, protest leaders argued that on Monday the 21st, as shown in the YouTube-hosted video displayed above, undercover cops tried to incite violence, appearing in masks and with one of the three men holding a rock--a leader can be heard in the video, yelling at the man to put the rock down. The Sûreté du Québec, the Québec provincial police force, has since confirmed that these men were infiltrators but denied that they were sent to provoke a clash. This claim has been met with skepticism, and not only because of the Sûreté's dubious record, which includes the accidental incitement of the Oka Crisis of 1990.
What you don't see on the video are members of the Peoples' Global Action outing the unknown intruders for their aggressive behaviour, at which point the men retreat towards the police line and into the path of Coles.
"They were acting in a violent manner toward demonstrators even prior to the video," says Hollingsworth, who was reporting on the demonstration from the nearby Independent Media Centre.
"We have on video evidence of an assault against a union leader," he adds. The footage shows the undercover cops repeatedly shoving Coles, who has suggested that he may take legal action.
It casts the reports that protesters "clashed" with police in a whole new light. In an interview with Hour prior to the summit, RCMP spokesperson Corporal Sylvain L'Heureux insisted that police would only react with force if demonstrators acted violently. "The actions of the police are dictated by the actions of the protesters," he said.
Indeed, this is the justification that was used by the SQ to defend the use of huge quantities of tear gas and rubber bullets against the crowd. According to medics, dozens of people sustained injuries.
In an ever more desperate effort to dig themselves out of this hole, the SQ continue to test the limits of the public's credulity, with Inspector Marcel Savard claiming at a press conference that the agents felt pressured to keep their cover in front of "extremists." One had been handed the rock by a protester and "formally asked" to throw it, he said.
Hollingsworth suggests that the provocateurs were present to justify a "massive overresponse" by law enforcement in the face of "a relatively tame demonstration." Although the RCMP and SQ have refused to disclose an actual amount, the cost of security was likely in the tens of millions.
At this distance and without more information--copies of police orders, say, or more video, or the fulfillment of calls for a public inquiry--it's impossible for me to judge the claims of nefarious poilice activity. What I can say is that the Montebello incident fits into a recent pattern of police malfeasance in Canada, of which the most notable has been the RCMP's complicity in deporting Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar from the United States to Syria, where ungrounded suspicions that he was a terrorist sympathizer caused him to be imprisoned and intermittantly tortured nearly two years. This pattern does have historic roots within Canada--in the 1970s, inquiries revealed that the RCMP committed crimes in its post-FLQ surveillance of Québec separatists, including breaking-and-entering the offices of separatist organizations to copy their confidential material and at least one barn-burning. This pattern of police malfeasance also fits into what some people have identified as a pattern of police action against people peacefully protesting certain globalization-associated iniatives, like the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America that was discussed at Montebello, on the pattern of the RCMP's pepper-spraying of protesters at the 1997 APEC conference in Vancouver.
From a specifically Canadian perspective, this all further complicated by Montebello's association with what seems to be the slow movement towards a North American Community that would inevitably be dominated by a hegemonic United States that has demonstrated, at Guantanamo and elsewhere, a willingness to militarize police matters and to police public discourse. It certainly doesn't help that one of the matters discussed at Montebello was policing and the creation of a North American security perimeter, complete with centralized databases. To be sure, I myself agree with many of many of the purported goals of a North American confederalism--integrated labour markets can be a good thing, likewise transnational governance--but to the extent that this confederalism is illegitimate, outside of public visibility or conducted for partisan (or foreign) political goals, I'm hostile. I don't think that I'm at all alone on this among Canadians, either.
Thoughts?
