The Virtual Historian

Globe and Mail
October 15, 1970

Use the law we have

The Criminal Code of Canada:
"Every one commits treason who, in Canada... (d) uses force or violence for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of Canada or a province...and is liable...to be sentenced to death or to imprisonment for life..."

"...Every one shall be presumed to have a seditious intention who (a) teaches or advocates, or (b) publishes or circulates any writing that advocates the use, without the authority of law, of force as a means of accomplishing a governmental change within Canada...and is liable to imprisonment for fourteen years."

The Front de Liberation du Quebec has robbed and bombed and killed. It has seized a British diplomat and a Quebec Cabinet minister and holds them to ransom, on the threat of death. It has announced in its manifesto, read October 8 over CBC in Quebec at its demand as a part of the ransom: "The Front de Liberation du Quebec is not a messiah, nor a modern-day Robin Hood. It is a group of Quebec workers who have decided to use all means to make sure that the people of Quebec take control of their destiny...

"In this coming year, (Premier) Bourassa will have to face reality: 100,000 revolutionary workers, armed and organized...we, the Quebeckers, have to use all our means, including arms and dynamite, to rid ourselves of these economic and political bosses who continue to oppress us..."

Is this treason? Is this sedition?

On Tuesday Michel Chartrand, chairman of the executive committee of the Federation of National Trade Unions in Montreal, issued a statement at a press conference called by Robert Lemieux, representative of the FLQ. "The executive committee of the CCSMN (Montreal CNTU) supports unequivocally all the objectives of the FLQ manifesto read on Radio-Canada, last Thursday, October 8, 1970," read Mr. Chartrand. Asked if he approved of the kidnappings, he replied, "I have always been a believer in democracy. I have worked in third parties for 30 years. If not, I would now be in the underground with the FLQ, but they will not make me spit on the heads of those who have had enough of falsified elections." He said, to cheers, that unemployed Quebeckers should try the Cuban way, with a gun.

Is not Mr. Chartrand perilously close to the brink of sedition?

Flanking Mr. Lemieux and Mr. Chartrand was Pierre Vallieres. Mr. Vallieres was sentenced to 30 months for manslaughter in 1969 for the death of Therese Morin in the 1966 bombing of a shoe factory, sentenced later for contempt of court, released in May on bail when he appealed the convictions. He said the kidnapping crisis would bring unity in Quebec's fight for liberation.
Mr. Chartrand promised a union body guard for Mr. Vallieres and Charles Gagnon, another convicted FLQ terrorist free on bail.

In Ottawa, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, asked how far he would go to protect citizens against the terrorists – to the point of "wiretapping, reducing other civil liberties in some way?" – replied, "Yes, I think the society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power in this country and I think that goes to any distance."

At Queen's Park Premier John Robarts supported Mr. Trudeau: "I don't see any way at all that you can compromise with people who are undermining our society – blackmailing us. Terrorist activities – there is no way we can survive as a society if we permit this...in a situation like this you do what's necessary and you use all the instruments at your command."

In Ottawa the Armed Forces protect foreign diplomats and Cabinet ministers with machine guns.

The Globe and Mail believe that Canada has special obligations to the two hostages now in FLQ hands. Those obligations spring from our failure, in the face of more than adequate warning, to provide even the flimsiest kind of protection. Those obligations require us to seek - as we are seeking - a way to secure their safety. But we recognize too, the obligation of our country, whatever we may do for James Cross and Pierre Laporte, to face in its totality the crisis imposed by the FLQ.

We do have to use the instruments at our command. Why not start with Mr. Chartrand? Let a court decide what his inflammatory statements constitute. And with Mr. Vallieres and Mr. Gagnon, revoke their bail and clap them in a nice safe jail. Is the Prime Minister to talk of tampering with the civil liberties of all while FLQ supporters and apologists perform to the cameras, and laws already written are not mentioned?

For there is this truth: they will either be brought under the law, or the law will put us all in prison. The prison of Canada, with a machine gun in its hand.