The October Crisis (French: Crise d'Octobre) was a chain of political events in Canada that started in October 1970 when members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped the provincial Labour Minister Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James Cross from his Montreal residence. These events saw Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoking the War Measures Act for the first time in Canadian history during peacetime. Laporte was assassinated over the course of the crisis.
The premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa, and the mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, supported Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act, which limited civil liberties and granted the police far-reaching powers, allowing them to arrest and detain 497 people. The Government of Quebec also requested military aid to support the civil authorities, with the Canadian Armed Forces being deployed throughout Quebec.
Although negotiations led to Cross's release, Laporte was murdered by the kidnappers. The crisis affected the province of Quebec, especially the metropolitan area of Montreal. The primary crises ended on December 28, but its ramifications extended across subsequent Canadian political administrations. At the time opinion polls in Quebec and throughout Canada showed widespread support for the usage of the War Measures Act.
The response was criticized by prominent politicians such as René Lévesque and Tommy Douglas. After the crisis, movements that pushed for electoral votes as a means to attain autonomy and independence grew stronger. At the time, support also grew for the sovereignist political party known as the Parti Québécois, which formed the provincial government in 1976.
The October Crisis (French: Crise d'Octobre) was a chain of political events in Canada that started in October 1970 when members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped the provincial Labour Minister Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James Cross from his Montreal residence. These events saw Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoking the War Measures Act for the first time in Canadian history during peacetime. Laporte was assassinated over the course of the crisis.
The premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa, and the mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, supported Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act, which limited civil liberties and granted the police far-reaching powers, allowing them to arrest and detain 497 people. The Government of Quebec also requested military aid to support the civil authorities, with the Canadian Armed Forces being deployed throughout Quebec.
Although negotiations led to Cross's release, Laporte was murdered by the kidnappers. The crisis affected the province of Quebec, especially the metropolitan area of Montreal. The primary crises ended on December 28, but its ramifications extended across subsequent Canadian political administrations. At the time opinion polls in Quebec and throughout Canada showed widespread support for the usage of the War Measures Act.
The response was criticized by prominent politicians such as René Lévesque and Tommy Douglas. After the crisis, movements that pushed for electoral votes as a means to attain autonomy and independence grew stronger. At the time, support also grew for the sovereignist political party known as the Parti Québécois, which formed the provincial government in 1976.
Background
From 1963 to 1970, the Quebec nationalist group Front de libération du Québec detonated over 200 bombs. While mailboxes, particularly in the affluent and predominantly Anglophone city of Westmount, were common targets, the largest single bombing occurred at the Montreal Stock Exchange on February 13, 1969, which caused extensive damage and injured 27 people. Other targets included Montreal City Hall, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the T. Eaton Company department store, armed forces recruiting offices, railway tracks, statues, and army installations. In a strategic move, FLQ members stole several tons of dynamite from military and industrial sites. Financed by bank robberies, they also threatened, via their official communication organ La Cognée, that more attacks were to come.
On July 24, 1967, the nationalist cause received support from French President Charles de Gaulle who, standing on a balcony in Montreal, shouted "Vive le Québec libre". De Gaulle was promptly rebuked by Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson. In a statement delivered to the French embassy Pearson declared, "The people of Canada are free. Every province in Canada is free. Canadians do not need to be liberated. Indeed, many thousands of Canadians gave their lives in two world wars in the liberation of France and other European countries."
By 1970, 23 members of the FLQ were in prison, including four convicted of murder. On February 26, 1970, two men in a panel truck, including Jacques Lanctôt, were arrested in Montreal when they were found with a sawed-off shotgun and a communiqué announcing the kidnapping of the Israeli consul. In June, police raided a home in the small community of Prévost, located north of Montreal in the Laurentian Mountains, and found firearms, ammunition, 140 kilograms (300 lb) of dynamite, detonators, and the draft of a ransom note to be used in the kidnapping of the United States consul.
Timeline
October 5: Montreal, Quebec: Two members of the "Liberation Cell" of the FLQ kidnap British diplomat James Cross from his home. The kidnappers are disguised as delivery men bringing a package for his recent birthday. Once the maid lets them in, they pull out a rifle and a revolver and kidnap Cross. This is followed by a communiqué to the authorities containing the kidnappers' demands, which included the exchange of Cross for "political prisoners", a number of convicted or detained FLQ members, and the CBC broadcast of the FLQ Manifesto. The terms of the ransom note are the same as those found in June for the planned kidnapping of the U.S. consul. At this time, the police do not connect the two.
October 8 - 10: A broadcast of the FLQ Manifesto in all French- and English-speaking media outlets is released in Quebec on October 8. On the 10th, also in Montreal, members of the Chénier Cell of the FLQ approach the home of the Quebec Minister of Labour, Pierre Laporte. While playing football with his nephew on his front lawn, Laporte is kidnapped.
October 11 - 12: The CBC broadcasts a letter from captivity from Pierre Laporte to the Premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa on October 11. By request of the federal government, General Gilles Turcot sends troops from the Canadian Forces to guard federal property in the Ottawa region the next day. Lawyer Robert Lemieux is appointed by the FLQ to negotiate the release of James Cross and Pierre Laporte. The Quebec government appoints Robert Demers.
October 13: Prime Minister Trudeau is interviewed by the CBC with respect to the military presence. In a combative interview Trudeau asks the reporter, Tim Ralfe, what he would do in his place. When Ralfe asks Trudeau how far he would go, Trudeau replies, "Just watch me".
October 14: Sixteen prominent Quebec personalities, including René Lévesque and Claude Ryan, call for negotiating "exchange of the two hostages for the political prisoners". FLQ's lawyer Robert Lemieux urges Université de Montréal students to boycott classes in support of FLQ.
October 15: Quebec City: The negotiations between the lawyers Lemieux and Demers are put to an end. The Government of Quebec formally requisitions the Canadian Forces in "aid of the civil power" pursuant to the National Defence Act. All three opposition parties, including the Parti Québécois, rise in the National Assembly and agree with the decision. On the same day separatist groups are permitted to speak at the Université de Montréal. Robert Lemieux organizes 3,000 students in a rally in Paul Sauvé Arena to show support for the FLQ; labour leader Michel Chartrand announces that popular support for FLQ is rising and states "We are going to win because there are more boys ready to shoot members of Parliament than there are policemen." The rally frightens many Canadians, who view it as a possible prelude to outright insurrection in Quebec.
October 16: Premier Bourassa formally requests that the government of Canada grant the government of Quebec "emergency powers" that allow them to "apprehend and keep in custody" individuals. This results in the implementation of the War Measures Act, allowing the suspension of habeas corpus, giving wide-reaching powers of arrest to police. The City of Montreal had already made such a request on the previous day. These measures came into effect at 4 a.m. Prime Minister Trudeau makes a broadcast announcing the imposition of the War Measures Act.
October 17: Montreal, Quebec: The Chénier cell of the FLQ announces that hostage Pierre Laporte has been executed. He was strangled and then stuffed in the trunk of a car and abandoned in the bush near Saint-Hubert Airport, a few miles from Montreal. A communique to police advising that Pierre Laporte has been executed refers to him derisively as the "minister of unemployment and assimilation". In another communique issued by the "Liberation cell" holding James Cross, his kidnappers declare that they are suspending indefinitely the death sentence against him, that they will not release him until their demands are met, and that he will be executed if the "fascist police" discover them and attempt to intervene. The demands they make are:
The publication of the FLQ manifesto
The release of 23 "political prisoners"
An airplane to take them to either Cuba or Algeria (both countries that they feel a strong connection to because of their struggle against colonialism and imperialism).
The re-hiring of the "gars de Lapalme".
A "voluntary tax" of $500,000 to be loaded aboard the plane prior to departure.
The name of the informer who had sold out the FLQ activists earlier in the year.
Controversially, police reports (which were not released to the public until 2010) state that Pierre Laporte was accidentally killed during a struggle. The FLQ subsequently wanted to use his death to its advantage by convincing the government that they should be taken seriously.
October 18: While denouncing the acts of "subversion and terrorism – both of which are so tragically contrary to the best interests of our people", columnist, politician, and future Premier of Quebec René Lévesque criticizes the War Measures Act: "Until we receive proof (of the size the revolutionary army) to the contrary, we will believe that such a minute, numerically unimportant fraction is involved, that rushing into the enactment of the War Measures Act was a panicky and altogether excessive reaction, especially when you think of the inordinate length of time they want to maintain this regime."
November 6: Police raid the hiding place of the FLQ's Chénier cell. Although three members escape the raid, Bernard Lortie is arrested and charged with the kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte.
December 3: Montreal, Quebec: After being held hostage for 62 days, kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross is released by the FLQ Liberation Cell after negotiations between lawyers Bernard Mergler and Robert Demers. Simultaneously, the five known kidnappers, Marc Carbonneau, Yves Langlois, Jacques Lanctôt, Jacques Cossette-Trudel and his wife, Louise Lanctôt, are granted safe passage to Cuba by the government of Canada after approval by Fidel Castro. They are flown to Cuba by a Canadian Forces aircraft. Jacques Lanctôt is the same man who, earlier that year, had been arrested and then released on bail for the attempted kidnapping of the Israeli consul.
December 23: Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announces that all troops stationed in Quebec will be withdrawn by January 5, 1971.
December 28: Saint-Luc, Quebec: The three members of the Chénier Cell still at large, Paul Rose, Jacques Rose, and Francis Simard, are arrested after being found hiding in a 6-metre (20 ft) tunnel in a rural farming community. They would later be charged with the kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte.
War Measures Act and military involvement
When Trudeau was asked by CBC reporter Tim Ralfe how far he was willing to go to stop the FLQ, he replied: "Just watch me." Three days later, on October 16, the Cabinet, under Trudeau's chairmanship, advised the governor general to invoke the War Measures Act at the request of the Premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa; and the Mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau. The War Measures Act gave sweeping powers of arrest and internment to the police. The provisions took effect at 4 a.m. and, shortly after that, hundreds of suspected FLQ members and sympathizers were rounded-up. In total, 497 people were arrested, including union activist Michel Chartrand, singer Pauline Julien and her partner, future Quebec Minister Gérald Godin, poet Gaston Miron, Dr. Henri Bellemare, simple living advocate Serge Mongeau, and CBC journalist Nick Auf der Maur and a junior producer.
This act was imposed after the negotiations with the FLQ had broken down, and the premier of Quebec was facing the next stage in the FLQ's agenda.
At the time, opinion polls in Quebec and the rest of Canada showed overwhelming support for the War Measures Act; in a December 1970 Gallup Poll, it was noted that 89% of English-speaking Canadians and 86% of French-speaking Canadians supported the introduction of the War Measures Act. They respectively showed 6% and 9% disapproval while the remaining 5% of each population was undecided. Since then, the government's use of the War Measures Act in peacetime has been a subject of debate in Canada as it gave police sweeping powers of arrest and detention.
Simultaneously, under provisions quite separate from the War Measures Act and much more commonly used, the solicitor-general of Quebec requisitioned the military's deployment from the chief of the Defence Staff in accordance with the National Defence Act. Troops from Quebec bases and elsewhere in the country were dispatched, under the direction of the Sûreté du Québec (Quebec's provincial police force), to guard vulnerable points and prominent individuals at risk. This freed up police resources to pursue more proactive tasks in dealing with the crisis.