Courageous Resistance to Military Occupation and Attempt to Isolate Quebec
- Christine Dandenault -
 Demonstration against the War Measures Act
at
the University of Calgary, October 27, 1970.
When
the government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau enacted
the War
Measures Act
on October 16, 1970 and the army was deployed in
the streets of Ottawa
and
Montreal before that and arrests began, opposition
and resistance was
immediate across the country. Students and youth,
intellectuals, working people and other
collectives in their
thousands protested all across the
country. The following
account is taken from newspapers published by the
Communist Party of
Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and its affiliated
organizations at the time
the events were taking place.
On the eve of the
coming into force of the War Measures Act,
3,000
youth and students gathered at the Paul Sauvé
Arena in
Montreal to salute the spirit of uncompromising
struggle against the
fascism of the government and to support new
developments in Quebec's
national liberation struggle. The next day,
October 16, 1970, more than
300 students gathered to support the people's
struggle for national
liberation and to publicly oppose the military
occupation. More than
35,000 copies of a statement issued by the
Communist Party of Quebec
(Marxist-Leninist) was widely distributed, calling
for opposition to
the War Measures Act. "The working class
moves into
the political arena and begins to take independent
action. All these
things showed the weakness of the Canadian
compradors and thwarted all
their plans. In order to suppress the rising
struggle of the people,
they have now unleashed fascism on the Quebec
people. These measures
have not worked," the statement reads.[1]
Rally at the University
of Montreal, October 1970.
"In Montreal,
students from McGill University, the University of
Quebec, the School
of Fine Arts, the University of Montreal and
various CEGEPs rose in
militant protest. Many students voted for a
boycott of classes and at
the Université du Québec, students organized a
sit-in for several days, defying fascist
intimidation by the
authorities," People's Canada Daily News
reported
on October 27, 1970.[2]
"On October 19, in Vancouver, British Columbia,
and Regina,
Saskatchewan, mass demonstrations were organized
in support of Quebec
patriots and to denounce the War Measures Act
[...]. One thousand students participated in the
rally in Regina. After
the rally, 300 activists marched angrily to
government buildings where
they organized a powerful demonstration. In
Vancouver, 1,500
demonstrators heard speakers at the courthouse
supporting the struggle
of the Quebec people and calling for total
opposition to the measures
imposed by the Trudeau lackey regime. Students
from the University of
Calgary did the same. After the rally, 300
students marched angrily to
central Calgary in an act of defiance to express
their militant protest
against the government's fascist measures."[3] In Ottawa, on
October 16, a meeting of more than 300
french-speaking students from
the University of Ottawa voted by a two-thirds
majority to strike
against the War Measures Act.
A
People's Canada Daily News report states:
 "Students from
across the country defended their right to publish
the FLQ manifesto in
their student newspapers. In Alberta, authorities
[...] at the
University of Lethbridge banned the distribution
of The
Meliorist newspaper and threatened the
publishers with
expulsion. In Halifax, commercial printers refused
to print St.
Mary's Journal because it contained an
editorial protesting
the government's attempt to 'institutionalize the
suppression of
information in Canada.' In Guelph, the RCMP seized
a mock-up copy of a
special issue of The Ontarion on the
struggle of
the people of Quebec and the War Measures Act.
Other student newspapers, such as the University
of Toronto's Varsity,
published the manifesto and various articles
quoting statistics
exposing the oppressive condition of the Quebec
people and describing
their long history of struggle for national
liberation."[4]
"On
Friday, December 25, more than 1,000 members and
sympathizers of
various democratic and patriotic groups in
Montreal held a
demonstration in front of the Parthenais Detention
Center to denounce
the imprisonment of revolutionary fighters and
Quebec patriots," PCDN
reported. The action was led by the Committee for
the Defence of
Democratic Rights (CDDP) founded in 1968 during
the uprising of workers
and students to defend them against ongoing
persecution.[5]
One
year later, on the anniversary of the use of the War
Measures
Act, the newspaper Le Québec populaire
reported that in Montreal, on October 16, 1971,
"more than 7,000 people
demonstrated on the first anniversary of the
imposition of the fascist
'war measures' law on the people of Quebec. The
law was denounced as a
dirty attempt to crush revolutionaries and
patriots and to stifle the
national liberation struggle."[6]
On the same day, in Toronto, a "rally took place
at Nathan
Philips Square, followed by a demonstration along
Toronto's main
streets to the U.S. imperialist consulate."[7]
The
articles in the Party press testify to the failure
of attempts by the
Trudeau government and police forces to isolate
the people of Quebec
and crush their resistance struggles. Ongoing
demonstrations took place
to demand the release of the political prisoners,
and the affirmation
of the rights of workers, students, Indigenous
peoples and the Quebec
people themselves.
 Since then, one event after another has
shown that
the striving of the people of Quebec and all of
Canada to gain control
of decision-making power over all matters that
concern them cannot be
resolved by the police and military powers.
Political problems require
political solutions, which the ruling elite
refuses to provide. The
arrangements where power remains in the hands of a
privileged few are
unsustainable because they are self-serving and
because the narrow
private interests keep fighting for more. The
people cannot agree with
that.
Today, no problem can be solved
without the full participation of the people of
Quebec and Canada at
the centre of decision-making. To think otherwise
is to maintain
illusions about the current outdated and bankrupt
political process.
Today, in this time of pandemic, the problem
remains. On
October 1, the Quebec government issued an
order-in-council imposing
new containment measures in response to the
numerous COVID-19 outbreaks
occurring in Quebec. These were accompanied by new
policing powers
announced by Premier François Legault and Security
Minister
Geneviève Guilbault. How can the response to a
pandemic and
all the social, medical, educational, mental
health and containment
issues be police powers? This response serves the
pursuit of the
neo-liberal agenda by governments in the hands of
a financial
oligarchy. It stands against the solutions being
put forward by the
thousands of workers in health, education and
throughout the society
who are on the frontlines and working to resolve
the crisis in their
favour.
Today, as before, these real problems can
only be solved with the full political and
ideological mobilization of
the human factor/social consciousness, not with
the criminalization of
different collectives, including the youth. The
people have never given
up the struggle to vest themselves with the
power to decide
all the issues that concern them. They expressed
this vigorously during
the War Measures Act in 1970 and affirm it
today in
the extremely difficult and complex conditions of
COVID-19 as they
confront a governance that blocks the solution of
problems and once
again resorts to criminalizing dissent.
Notes
1. "The
Quebec People's Unarmed Struggle Will Become
Armed!" Statement by the
Communist Party of Quebec (Marxist-Leninist), People's
Canada
Daily News, October 17, 1970
2. "Canadian Workers
and Students
Stand Firmly Behind Quebec People," People's
Canada Daily News,
October 27, 1970.
3. "The Resistance
Movement Will
Develop People's Democratic Power," People's
Canada Daily News,
October 27, 1970.
4. "Canadian Workers
and Students
Stand Firmly Behind Quebec People," People's
Canada Daily News,
October 27, 1970.
5. "CDDP Leads Mass
Demonstrations
in Montreal," People's Canada Daily News,
January
20, 1971.
6. "More than 7,000
people
demonstrate for the struggle for national
liberation and against
fascism," Le Québec populaire, October
18, 1971.
7. "Demonstration in
Toronto
against American imperialism and in support of
the national liberation
struggle of the Quebec people," Le Québec
populaire,
October 18, 1971.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 39 - October
17, 2020
Article Link:
Courageous Resistance to Military Occupation and Attempt to Isolate Quebec - Christine Dandenault
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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