2022-10-28 Covid protests, Vocabulary and Context. WE WILL DO BETTER . . .  NEXT TIME! say the Police.

This began as a submission to the Commission of Enquiry into the Invocation of the Emergency Act in Canada, in February 2022.

 

WE WILL DO BETTER . . .  NEXT TIME  say the Police

CONTENTS, approximately

1.  THE VOCABULARY

IF YOU DO NOT KNOW THE VOCABULARY FOR THE DISCOURSE, can you be clear about the decisions? 

PROTESTOR? NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE?  DEMONSTRATOR?  INSURGENT AND COUNTER-INSURGENT?  INSURRECTION?  INSURRECTIONIST?  SUBVERSIVE?  ACTIVIST? FREEDOM FIGHTER?  REVOLUTIONARY?  DISSIDENT?  UPRISING?  ENGAGED CITIZEN?  . . . RESISTOR OF TYRANNY?  REBEL? REBELLION?  AN OLD LADY (in my case!) . . .  or maybe “fringe minority”? misogynist?  Racist?  . . .  WHAT ARE YOU?

 Prononouncement:  There will be more and larger mass demonstrations

2.  CHARACTERISTIC    A bit about myself 

3.  TIPPING POINTS:

4.  CITIZEN ACTION DOES NOT SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST OUT OF THIN AIR       

5.  NEXT  STEPS   

Please do not confuse “The Problem” with what is a Predictable Outcome. 

Help from Canadian thinker Jane Jacobs, “SYSTEMS OF SURVIVAL, A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics”,  1992                                                         

– – – –  – – – – – – – –

 

SO:  There will be more and larger mass demonstrations . . . ?

 

On October 18 and 19^th, 2022, the Commission into the Invocation of the Emergency Act in Canada heard from Police:   we will do better next time.   

On CBC radio the next day (Oct 20), an “authority” pronounced:  There will be more and larger mass demonstrations.

– – – – – –

Without some CONTEXT, and without the VOCABULARY for processing the information, it is more likely that YES, there WILL BE more and larger mass demonstrations.   And

when the Police  “DO BETTER”, it will be WORSE for Canadians and democracy.

If thwarted above ground, aggrieved people go underground (elaboration under “CONTEXT”).

– – – – – – – – – –

What is missing in the pronouncement by “the authority”?   

There was no mention of the Unimaginable Numbers of people worldwide who are pitching in to help Canadians (and each other) fight the erasure of Rights.

Are we going to continue the fight against the wrongs that were done during the “covid” years, and that continue to be done?  Is the Government going to come to the Table, or are they going to out-source their job to the Police?

The determination that our Rights will not be taken from us is shared around the globe.  We stand by each other in this resolve.  Today, Feb 18, 2023, I watched footage from Oxford, UK, home of Oxford University, not known to be a hotbed of radicals!   The city of Oxford appears to have become that very thing.  Masses of people in the streets, sharing information and supporting a united community.

There are much larger masses in other cities, in the UK and elsewhere.  I include Oxford because it caught me by surprise.

Another “missing” in the Unimaginable Numbers is the Millennials.

Brief Digression:

• • • Systems of Survival
    • Bruce Lipton, youtube
    • Kahlil Gibran, “On Children”

1992:  “SYSTEMS OF SURVIVAL, A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics” by Jane Jacobs, is helpful to the discourse and contains a cautionary note about our conditioned interpretations of “what’s happenin’”,  baby-boomer stereotypes of “protestors”, for example.

2023:   The science and logic are changed.  I am not controlled primarily by genetics; epigenetics play a much greater role in determining the contributions I will make to my world.  “Environment” turns on the switches in cells in my body and all their potential.

Dr. Bruce Lipton is one of many scientists in the field of epigenetics.  He is good at explaining things in language I can mostly understand.   And he is hopeful:

Large numbers of “millennials” have NO “investment” in today’s world, nor in the projected future.  They want “a better world”; they are creative; and more than among baby boomers, they have “agency”.

DR BRUCE LIPTON:   https://youtu.be/3-rF0OHY7NI  (approx. an hour)

1923:     Kahlil Gibran   A sobering dose of reality adds to the hopefulness: 

Your children are not your children.    their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. 

RETURN TO   more and larger mass demonstrations – – is that scenario inevitable?

It is easy for the talking “authorities” to credibly predict more and larger mass demonstrations.

CAVEAT:  it will happen if “not enough” of us are ferociously dedicated to the fight for freedom.

The Police say, “We will do better next time”.  I understood this to mean they will do better at PREVENTING the protesters from getting near the Legislators, next time..

. . .  But what if the actions are part of what citizens do if they want to keep the rights that have been fought for, defended and entrusted to them by generations of forebears?  Autonomy over their own bodies?  Agency in their own lives.

The Government needs to dump its corporate masters.  Stop lying if they ever expect to be trusted.  Get rid of the “Communications Consultants”. STOP THE PROPAGA(NDA.  And put an end to the fear-mongering.  For starters.

 

CHARACTERISTIC – A BIT ABOUT MYSELF

I am 73-years-old, born 4 years after the end of WW2.

I am from The Prairies (Luseland, SK), small town rural, distant from the city, of a different time.  My Grandfathers and Dad were, by the quirks of fate, prevented from going to war.  They were not directly exposed to the environment of killing.  In my family, there was no broken down drunkenness returned from the war.  Women and children are respected.

I have a decades-long interest in the building (and conversely the destruction) of strong, healthy communities.

Which is tied to unending curiosity:  how ever could Germany have descended into naziism (fascism)?  The standard responses have never been fully satisfying to me.  I don’t understand it viscerally.  Except now, through the covid experience I begin to see, to observe the process in action.

I am enamoured of freedom with its attendant responsibilities.

I have been twice to the Museum of Non-Violent Resistance at Checkpoint Charlie on the Wall that divided West from East in Berlin, Germany, during the Cold War.  The first time was in 1999 on a day when we were busy dropping bombs on Kosovo (not far from Berlin if you measure distance as it is on The Prairies).

I view healthy communities and de-centralized governance as

the best defence against mass subjugation and corruption. 

I was an elected member of the University of Saskatchewan Senate for 6 years in the 2000’s.  The Senate is the “voice of the community” in the tri-cameral governance structure of Saskatchewan Universities.  Activists from south and north got themselves elected to the Senate to challenge the commandeering of a public institution (“theft”) to serve corporate entities and enrichment.   At the expense of the public good.

– – – – – – – – – – –

INFORMED PUBLIC DISCOURSE IS MISSING IN ACTION

What am I classified as, in the data banks? . . .    a protestor?  An activist?  – – insurrectionist?  – – dissident?   revolutionary – – subversive – – an insurgent – –  a resistor of tyranny?  – – A rebel – – an old lady?   How are YOU categorized?

. .  it is hard to imagine any insurgency meeting its goals without undermining aspects of the legitimacy or power of the government . . . . subversion includes measures short of violence, which still serve the purposes of insurgents.

Ironically, myself and tonnes of others have worked for a very long time, and still work, to STOP the takeover of our Government.   We have lost regulatory power.    Our sovereignty has been given away.  Now we have a frontal attack on Rights.

Citizens do not hear or learn the proper vocabulary for this discussion

because it is seldom used in public, in Canada.  Not in reference to ourselves.

 

The meaning of the vocabulary is dependent on “who controls the cargo”.   If you are the Ogoni of the oil-rich Niger Delta (Nigeria) and you wish that your people did not live in poverty  while foreign interests corrupt, pollute your nation and make off with the riches, in the news you are a dirty “insurrectionist”;  you get killed.  Look around.  Better you be on the side of the exploiters.

The Trucker Convoy and its supporters are freedom fighters, n’est-ce pas?

 

But, insurgents are not us, may the Gods forbid! “Insurgents”  are foreign and to be feared.  They are scary people.  . . . Whereas, in my experience they are the best candidates for political office in Canada because they understand HOW the perversion of governance comes about.  It is in their lived experience.

The Trucker relationship with the Police  – – with the Police because the Government won’t meet with the Truckers – – will be rocky because the word “protest” and its alternatives have been successfully stigmatized,  IF we don’t fiercely exercise our rights to free speech and to assemble.  That is our rebellion.  In my view,  too many Canadians do not understand the vulnerability of our current situation.

I value the conversation I had with an underground “insurgent” from Central America who fought the usurpers of his country, for years.  The battle was not won in his time; he managed to escape to Canada as the nets were tightening, before he could be apprehended by Police of the regime.  He would not have survived police custody.  Death is an ordinary due of freedom fighters.

In Canada and internationally we are fighting side-by-side, hard as we can, against corrupted governance – – Big Government working with Big Pharma. Most of my colleagues understand that the definition of fascism is a marriage of Government and Corporate entities.

The refusal of the Government to come to a table to even hear, let alone fix, the WHY’s – –   – –  WHY would these people travel these thousands of kilometers, and camp outside in Canadian winter – – WHAT is SO important to them that they voluntarily stepped forward  to carry a message that was visibly supported by untold numbers in the world, and stifled by propaganda, manipulation, coercion and worse?

If the Governments, Big Pharma and their Collaborators are allowed to remove the autonomy we have over our own bodies, rule our everyday movements, freeze bank accounts & credit cards without independent adjudication, to imprison without charge,  . . .  if this is not stopped, Canadians will learn soon enough WHAT is important enough.

The Invocation of the Emergency Act.  What is that?  . . . How would you classify it, if not as an act of counter-insurgency to the Truckers and their Supporters, the insurgency?  What else fits?  CAN it be discussed fairly and intelligently, if we don’t know the right words for the Government actions?

If the trend of more and larger mass demonstrations cannot be reversed by citizens, i.e. if we are not successful in establishing civil Government, especially in a high-surveillance state, then a police or corporate (fascist) state is ensconced in Canada.  The flagrant irrelevance of Rule by Law (think of Jody Wilson-Raybould)  is a shout-out warning.

Many have concluded that big business is running the show.  Corporatocracy, not democracy is an accurate portrayal.  On this one, I don’t care what you call it, so long as the word “democracy” as a stand-alone is not accepted because that’s not what we have.   “Remnant democracy” maybe.

 

If the reality is a corporatized state, there has been a coup d’état by stealth in Canada (and in the U.S.)

“Military historian Edward Luttwak says, “A coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder”   Quislings in Canada have and continue to play a significant role.

(2010-09-13   RCMP identify coup d’etat as threat to Canada, Ottawa Citizen.)

 

The tools for reclaiming the levers of Government evolve with the times and technology. 

The patient, Canadian democracy, may not survive without even greater mobilizations of its defenders.  Maybe the “authority” I heard on the radio will be proven right.  More and larger mass demonstrations are likely a necessity?

The characteristics of a police and surveillance state, clear disdain for the Rule of Law, knowledge of people who have left Canada because the writing is on the wall . . . Time will tell.

“Do not go gentle into that good night.”

– – – – – – –

So,

1. You can’t have the best discourse if you don’t know the vocabulary for the discussion.
2. THERE IS A VOID IN THE DISCOURSE

• The Commission into the Invocation of the Emergency Act  AND
• A possible National Citizen’s Inquiry into Covid

BOTH orient the discussion to the present and the future,, For example

Tell us how your ideas might apply in the future. . . How would they apply to different protest activities about other matters?

 

The VOID I wish to address:   What about the past?  What about CONTEXT?  

I am guessing that few Canadians who are younger than 40 will know about the massive mobilizations in the USA in 1999.   Thousands of Canadians crossed the border to join them.    A film was made about the nation-wide insurrection, “Battle in Seattle”.  Woody Harrelson was one of the actors.

CITIZEN ACTION DOES NOT SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST OUT OF THIN AIR

The “Battles to Protect the Commons” are decades-long and arduous.  “The Commons” is comprised of components upon which creation and human society are dependent for survival and health.   Big Pharma is not on the list of components.

 

SO  – – – – WHAT IS THE CONTEXT, INCLUDING THE PAST, for

THE TRUCKERS CONVOY   (A.K.A. THE FREEDOM CONVOY?

Non-violent Resistance to the erasure of Rights

makes the Truckers, Farmers (Coutts) and Supporters into protestors or Insurgents (or other words)   and

Government response is Counter-Insurgent.  (Government goes to any end to be the Dictator – fund state media; roll out the propaganda machine; take political prisoners, trample Rights, freeze people’s money, property; prosecute, fine and put protesters in jail; invoke the Emergency Act; lie.)

IF THWARTED ABOVE GROUND, AGGRIEVED PEOPLE GO UNDERGROUND.    

I did not know to what depth resentment descends.  A couple of experiences made it palpable.    

https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=19166

• We were 15 years in Nova Scotia. I followed the Acadians from N.S. to Louisiana.  There, a new (1999) lovely little Acadian museum describes the “genocide” by the English.  The Brits removed the French from N.S.. The memory of injustice is strong enough 250-years later to drive community construction of this place.  250 years later! They want their kids to know and remember.
• 150 year memory. Their sons were killed in the U.S. Civil War that started in 1865. Atlanta, GA, on a tour in the historic section.  The telling of the stories was truly as though the injustice of dead sons had happened maybe 40 years ago.  It was 150 years ago.
• Think of the Middle East, the Balkans, . . .
• Women Who Run With the Wolves, Excerpt below.

(the preceding is from  2002-11-21 (2 of 3), on Non-violent resistance      (http://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=4804)

 

The CONTEXT for The Trucker Convoys across Canada, 2022, includes Battle in Seattle, also MONTEBELLO, 2007.

2008-11-28 Follow-up on Montebello, Police provoke Violence at SPP protest (2007)     https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=747 

Three police officers from the Quebec Surete were trained to be provocateurs – – turn peaceful protest violent.  The protest was Legitimate – – heads of corporations and top Government officials (the USA, Canada and Mexico) meeting behind closed doors to make policy decisions that belong in the House of Commons.

As I say, Police officers trained, deployed, disguised as protestors to turn the protest violent.  Their Police-issue boots gave them away.  Protestors pulled down their bandanas, others video’d their faces.  A short documentary was made, with the head of the Quebec Surete caught red-handed later explaining, “The police were doing their job”.    The media nor anyone else ever called them to account, in spite of all the attempts to do so.

In the 15 years since 2007, “the corporate guys” have made great strides.  We were looking at 3 countries and numerous big corporations in 2007.  In 2022,  the covid template was rolled out around the world.  2007 looks like Mary Poppins in comparison.     

 

Violence, the weapon of choice.  Don’t fix the problem.  Look at CONTEXT – –

• The Oka Crisis (1990)
• Ipperwash (1995)
  • 2020-02-20 Blockades. The lesson from Ipperwash cost Dudley George his life.

. . .   I don’t see it said that the Stony Plain people had been trying . . . FOR FIFTY YEARS.  The blockade at Ipperwash was after 50 years of lawyers and mediators and Government officials getting big salaries and perks to resolve the problem. With ZERO accomplishment. An unarmed Dudley George was shot dead by police, with provocation from Ontario then-Premier Mike Harris.

Justice Linden did not take long to determine that “Ipperwash” belonged to the Chippewa. Something that all those lawyers and politicians and “officials” and mediators could not accomplish in 50 years.  It took a dead man (and another two decade after that, for the land to be returned, as set out in the Agreement with the Canadian Armed Forces, that the land would be returned – – it was on temporary loan to be used during WW2.)

CONTEXT:

• (1980)   The Constitution Express (trains with a thousand Indians on-board descend on Ottawa.  Ref. “Unsettling Canada” by Arthur Manuel.)
• (1999)   Battle in Seattle.  Canadians part of it.
• (2007)   Montebello
• (2007-08)  Mainstreet reactions to Wallstreet-induced severe worldwide economic crisis.  Canadians part of it.
• (2010)   G20 Summit, Toronto
• (2012)   Idle No More  started in Saskatchewan
• (2022)   Trucker’s Convoy cross-Canada

That’s a fraction of the action by citizens to assert what’s right.

No one was killed during the Freedom Convoys across Canada in 2022 and the invocation of the Emergency Act, thanks to the leadership of the Truckers, and some (many) among the Police.

Given what is known, Did the Government WANT the conflict over covid settled?

The announcement by the head of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, that they had “Trudeau and half the Canadian cabinet” in their pocket – – ?

Chrystia Freeland is on the WEF (World Economic Forum) Board.  Freeland entered the Canadian political scene in 2013 under the Liberals. I was alarmed by her connection to Larry Summers, to the point of documenting it in 2017.  Bringing that magnitude of corruption into the Canadian political system, as financial advisors no less, will scuttle any ship of state.  McKinsey also hit the radar screen at that time.

2017-05-25 Chrystia Freeland – Larry Summers – Dominic Barton connection. “Inclusive Capitalism Initiative” as “re-branding”. Summers bad news (corrupt) (Wall Street vrs Main Street  2007-08 fiasco), Canadian financial matters, advisors to Liberals.

The alarm was warranted. The track record of the Trudeau Jr Government is well-known.  Just one egregious example:  political interference in the decisions of the office of the Attorney-General of Canada (Jody Wilson-Raybould) (prosecution of SNC-Lavalin).  Not bad enough, the Cabinet got rid of AG Wilson-Raybould.  . . . . There’s the Wi Fund-raising; Canadians know the litany.  God help us to remember at Election Time.

In my view, CORRUPTION is the single most important threat to peace, order and good governance in Canada.

– – –

Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

Excerpt from  https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=2348 

(The “young woman” is the naive in all of us, men and women.  Read this as “gender-inclusive”!)

“.. though the young woman attempts to follow the orders of the predator, and agrees to be ignorant about the secret in the cellar, she can only comply for so long.  Finally she puts the key, the question, to the door and finds the shocking carnage …  And that key, that tiny symbol of her life,
suddenly will not cease its bleeding, will not cease to give the cry that something is wrong.  A woman may try to hide from the devastations of her life, but the bleeding, the loss of life’s energy, will continue UNTIL SHE RECOGNIZES THE PREDATOR FOR WHAT IT IS and CONTAINS IT.

When (women or men) open the doors of their own lives and survey the carnage there, in those out-of-the way places, they most often find they have BEEN ALLOWING SUMMARY ASSASSINATIONS of their most crucial dreams, goals, and hopes. …    

… when such a gruesome discovery is made… we can be sure the natural predator … has been at work methodically destroying a woman’s most cherished desires, concerns, and aspirations.

In fairy tales, the animal groom character is a common motif that can be understood to represent a MALEVOLENT THING DISGUISED AS A BENEVOLENT THING.  This or some proximate characterization is always present when a woman  carries naive presentiments about something or someone.  When a woman is attempting to avoid the facts of her own devastation, her night dreams are likely to shout warnings to her, warnings and exhortations to wake up! or get help! or flee! or go for the kill!”

 

TIPPING POINTS

You say – – but Canada is not East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall.

Nor is it South Africa, Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27-year imprisonment.  I went there, too, to try and figure out a bit of what and how things happen.

My hypothesis:   TIPPING POINTS are a factor.   In a dynamic system (Governance in this case), given feedback that the system is failing, there has to be a mobilization by citizens to correct their system of governance.

If the system is to be returned to civil government there are two requirements:

1. The Mobilization has to be TIMELY (corrections have to be implemented PRIOR TO arrival at a tipping point after which the system is beyond retrieval).

1. The corrections have to fix the ACTUAL CAUSES of the failings. Otherwise the system will continue into collapse.

If mainstream Canadian Media was doing its job, Canadians would know that imprisonment without charge, terms of bail that mock democracy, and other outrages are pushing us dangerously and ever closer to a Tipping Point.

 

• North America has had its own monumental struggles.  The Truckers Convoy, a.k.a. the Freedom Convoy, was sparked most directly after two years of futile petitioning by citizens. To me the Convoy was a novel, high-risk initiative of very uncertain outcome coming from a place that was predicted by NO ONE. . . . Truckers?!

(From The Museum of Non-Violent Resistance)

“… nonviolent resistance as a political force is still young, its possibilities not yet well enough known, and is thus seldom an incitement to the masses and is seldom encouraged by the media.  

For all that, those striving for human rights are dependent on our solidarity and the feeling is growing of an ever increasing threat through the power of dictatorships, the armaments race and the immobility of bureaucrats.    (I photographed these words in 1999)

Gandhi presented the principles of nonviolent resistance to the world, but the methods – corresponding to the various hierarchies – have to be very different, should they lead to success.  

Through the multiplicity of nonviolent resistance, so rich in ideas,  (INSERT: a Convoy of Truckers?!)   it can be demonstrated that the most powerful effective opposing forces can be mobilized against every form of violence …“

– – –

The following poem, also from the Museum of Non-violent Resistance, describes exactly the happiness and joy I experienced in concert with an estimated 14,000 – 15,000 people, January 29^th, 2022 at ONE of the protest locations on Vancouver Island.   The mainstream media blacked it out, as we had come to expect would happen.  The strategy back-fired.  We understood the importance of being responsible for communicating with everyone we knew.  January 29^th was a day like no other.  Exciting and fun while serious and sad.

From the Museum of Non-Violent Resistance, the pen of an unknown East German:

 “The red-painted tyranny was not

The worst about our tyrants

The worst thereby were we ourselves

All our cowardice and servility

And that we also were the evil ourselves

Just that is the chance and our luck

You see: It works! We also take back

The everlasting human right ourselves

Now we breathe again, we cry and we laugh

the stale sadness out of the breast

man, we are stronger than rats and dragons

– and had forgotten it and always knew.”

 

Spread over a number of years,

• coup d’état  –  corporatocray infiltrates democracy, takes over the reins of government by stealth using money, revolving doors, quislings and other means
• revolution or insurgency  –  (the words carry innuendo of “bad guys”)   Citizens come to see: business interests and values are appropriate in the commercial sphere.  They are horribly corrupting in the sphere of governance.
• counter insurgency  –   corporatocracy wants to hold onto power and control.   They mobilize  “a counterinsurgency force” against the forces fighting to restore democracy.

 

In Canada the counter insurgency, some links  (you may add your own examples – there are lots more to choose from):

• 2008-11-28   Follow-up on Montebello, Police provoke Violence at SPP protest (2007) (recorded on video.  No doubts.)
• 2012-06-10   G-20 Summit, Toronto. And kettling, a tactic of police.
• 2010-06-24  G20: Canada’s billion-dollar summit mystery, Toronto Star
•  Battle in Seattle, WTO, SPP.

The Police tactics at Montebello and the G-20 Summit in Toronto were extensions of the counter insurgency against citizen mobilizations over the  World Trade Organization (WTO) which is the Corporatocracy,  the SPP,  in different garb.

When I try to see what is happening in my own country,  it is more difficult because of the built-in bias.   But after working with our network for more than 20 years, battle after battle, what becomes obvious is the corporate power behind-the-scenes with the accompanying corruption of governance and values.  The values said to be our values are NOT our values.    Corporatocracy’s coup d’état over democracy, insurgency and counter insurgency, are the right words to describe the Canadian (and American) situation.

Our ability to focus on one thing by simultaneously excluding “large-as-life” activity that crosses our field-of-vision.  A mind-blowing old video:

Perception, an illustration of our fallibility and our gullibility. Dan Simons. Basketball.     https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=6190

     Masks … Masks …  Masks    A bit of irony!

2012-05-19 TO: MP Blake Richards re his private member’s bill to make it a crime to wear a mask at protests. Remember Montebello, it was the police who wore the masks.

In October 2011, Blake introduced Private Member’s Bill C-309 in the House of Commons. The bill if passed would make it a new Criminal Code offence to wear a mask or to otherwise conceal one’s identity during a riot or an unlawful assembly. The bill has garnered the support of police chiefs in major Canadian cities, including Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria.

https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=5392

Dear Blake Richards,  . . .

EVENT:   SPP meetings in Montebello, Quebec.  Peaceful protest.

DATE:  2007

The only protesters who wore masks were POLICE OFFICERS.  They were trained and assigned the role of turning the protest violent.

It is all on video, along with the later statement by the head of Quebec Police (Surete) that yes, the “protesters” were actually police officers.

Peaceful protesters (unmasked, no need to hide their identity)  tried to stop these “violent protesters” from using rocks against the line of uniformed police officers who were holding shields and wearing riot gear.

An observant person noticed that the “violent protesters” were wearing police boots and shouted it out.   The legitimate protesters then reached in and yanked down the masks so that others could catch the revealed faces on video.

Through video footage, the officers were later identified by civilians.  The head of the Quebec police was then forced to make a public statement, admitting that the masked “violent” protesters were police officers.  He excused their actions.

Links to the video of the Montebello footage and the Police response are at   http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=747

For at least 15 months, demands for a public inquiry went unheeded.   An inquiry was eventually announced.  As far as I know, it was never held.  No one was ever held to account.

It is illegal to incite violence.  When it is masked police officers who are doing it, under the direction and blessing of their superiors, then implicitly sanctioned by the Government (no action to correct), we have descended to a police state.

The documentary film, Battle in Seattle, (huge WTO protests) makes it clear that in some cases it is a police (National Guard) strategy to ALLOW violence to get out-of-hand BEFORE they step in with tear gas and rubber bullets.  (Violence discredits the protesters AND makes citizens reluctant to protest).  Montebello is ample evidence that in some cases it is the police themselves who instigate the violence, who are the provocateurs. Was it provocateurs at work in Seattle?  I don’t know.

 

OFFICIALS LEARN:

Governments and Police officials took lessons from “The Battle in Seattle”.   (It took place in the U.S. but remember that Canadian and U.S. military and police are now “integrated” and have “compatible doctrine”.  Also note:  The WTO, the SPP and the SPP successor organization have a common base:  transnational corporate interests.)

It seems to me that the Officials took two things away from Montebello:

1. Disguised police officers planted in a crowd must not wear police boots  OR,  maybe it is safer to CONTRACT OUT such work.
2. They can do whatever they want:  Canadians are dumb, uninformed and without backbone.  Canadians won’t stand up for ANYTHING.  The talk about defending what the veterans fought and died for in World War Two (democracy) is meaningless rhetoric.

Another brief point:   Media portray “the Quebec protests” as student protests over tuition hikes.  They fail to note that the largest protests in Quebec happened on Earth Day and are about the failure of Governments to protect the Environment.   http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=5143

Failed protection of the environment, the SPP and its successor organization, corporate influence in Universities, failing democracy, widening income gaps – – the ROOT is the same:  large corporate interests being served by Governments and public institutions.

In CONCLUSION:

• Protests will continue to escalate because NOTHING is being done to address the root cause:   the Government, Police Officials and Universities have become tools to serve corporate interests.
• Montebello is misleading VIEWED IN ISOLATION.  The mistake of “officials” is to add insult upon insult. Growing protest tells me that Canadians know the dangers;  they are standing up – with much more to come, unless Government officials start to aggressively defend and serve the public interest.

I think of supporting your call to make it illegal to wear masks at protests (unmask the police).

HOWEVER,

• it should also be illegal for officials to contract out their Police work (they will do that if they are “unmasked”).
• there also needs to be extremely strong whistle-blower protection for police officers.

/Sandra Finley