[b112]

I think you both need to read a bit more, and also, listen to released (more than 50 years, such recordings must be released) recordings of private meetings at the time.

While no PM is perfect, when the Premier of Quebec phones the PM, and says (paraphrasing here) that "the separatists are everywhere, I don't know who to trust in the police, my own staff, they're all around me", while little girls are being killed by bombs, diplomats are being kidnapped and slaughtered, maybe declaring martial law isn't a completely bad response.

And when you see this at the start of the article:

The Premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa, and the Mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, supported Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act

Well, come on....

I personally find the current laws being passed to be highly dangerous, and very disturbing, but trying to compare it acts taken against domestic terrorists, and lunatics, is a little wonky.

[b112]

To give a bit more clarity....

Canada is not a police heavy state. And you get a premier, and mayor, saying the police cannot be trusted.

You cannot deploy troops domestically for police action in Canada, without the war measures act.

What would you do?

I find it best to ask such a question. What would you do?

You weren't there. You aren't even fully aware of the complete history, nor what the RCMP domestic terrorism unit said to the PM.

what do you do?

Not that, you may say. Well, arm chair quarterbacking seems all too easy, to me, and is often wrong.

[leereeves]

Suspension of civil liberties in response to political unrest is not an uncommon response. We've seen it in the US. That doesn't make it right.

I'm not Canadian, so perhaps I shouldn't arm chair quarterback Canadian history, but you asked what I would do.

I'll respond to a similar scenario that hits a lot closer to home for me: would I have supported the detention of hundreds of Muslims after 9/11, without any evidence they'd committed a crime?

Absolutely not.

And on that basis I feel perfectly comfortable saying that the detention of 500 people in Quebec, without any evidence they'd committed a crime, was wrong.

---

Edit: I'm "posting too fast" so I'll respond briefly here to the posts below:

> so democratic that we have allowed votes on separation over the years

Canada hadn't allowed such votes before the October Crisis. The first referendum on Quebec sovereignty was in 1980.

Holding a referendum in 1970 would have been preferable to the violence and the suspension of civil liberties, but only the [mostly anglophone] government could have called such a vote, and it wasn't done. Not then, and up to that time, not ever.

So when you say that the Quebecois were trying to separate "by force, without vote", remember that such a vote was not an option available to them.

[b112]

The difference is, a province in a democratic nation, so democratic that we have allowed votes on separation over the years, yet we had terrorists deciding they're going to split a province, without vote, without democracy, by violence. That they intend to seize power by force.

It was a very, very tumultuous time. It was the civil war that almost was.

And with many civil wars, 99.99% of the population did not want violence, but would have been caught bleeding, dead on the street.

Was it right? I don't know. But I know enough to restate this ... how can I judge?

[b112]

I'll add a little more here; context.

Were the muslims trying to break 1/5th of the landmass of the US, and 40% of the population, by for force, without vote?

Was there evidence those muslims were part of the group which caused 9/11? And that group held political prisoners, were blowing up random things, and threatening even more violence and death?

It is hard to find parallels here.

EDIT

Heh, I hit that filter just now...

Anyhow...

The votes for separation were not federal, but provincial. Quebec chose when to hold such votes, not Ottawa.

The premier at the time was french.

Also note that more than half our Prime Ministers have been french.

[jpambrun]

FLQ predates seperation votes. For all we know, without the October crisis, our democratic society might have gone the Spain/Catalonia way.

[b112]

What predates what, does not imply causation though.

Without the FLQ, and moderate Quebeckers seeing lunatics and murderers, trying to usurpe democratic process, with extreme acts of violence, maybe things may have indeed been different.

But when moderates recall the acts of violent radicals, maybe they think "I'm not sure I want to vote for anything associated...", or "If they thought violence was OK then, what laws may they pass when in power?"

The stigma of the FLQ rubbed off on peaceful separatists for a long time...