"This is approaching absurdist comedy," tweeted Montreal Gazette reporter Christopher Curtis Friday night, trapped in a police kettle from which Montreal's finest inexplicably refused to release him as his deadline approached.

"Did they really, actually arrest Anarchopanda????" replied well known Québécoise pundit Josée Legault.

Curtis never replied, no doubt caught up in extricating himself from police custody, so allow me to do so now: yes Josée, they really, actually did. Just call him Arrestopanda. At night's end the tally ran something like this: one panda, several rabbits, a few dozen journos and almost three hundred dull normals cuffed, processed and slapped with $637 fines. This after being held for hours in the cold kettles Montreal police formed around them.

An obscene over-reaction regardless of circumstance, kettling has been ruled illegal by England's High Court. In Toronto, the senior police commander who ordered protesters kettled at the 2010 G20 summit has been charged with discreditable conduct and unlawful use of authority. The Toronto Police Service have committed to never use the tactic again after an independent review found it to be unlawful. Kettling is a particularly disturbing tactic because it only works on peaceful protesters who offer little resistance, making it insidiously offensive to the concept of free speech and free assembly.

But, some would argue, once those damn kids started with the breaking of the windows and the throwing of the snowballs, what choice did the police have?

Sorry Dorothy, but we're not in Kansas anymore. The question of whether you can justify arresting hundreds of people because one or two did something objectionable is sooooo 2012.

Friday night, before the protest had even begun, and without so much as a hurtful word to serve as pretext, Montreal police descended on a crowd of protesters who were, without exception, peaceful and arrested the lot of them.

I don't go in for a lot of the alarmist stuff you see on Twitter and Facebook. I think Stephen Harper sucks, and I hate what he's done to our country, but I don't think he's a dictator or a fascist. I've always hated the SSPVM chant (the addition of an extra "s" to the name of Montreal's police service alluding to the Nazi SS) and I think such hyperbole often obscures, rather than illuminates, important issues.

So it's not for nothing that I tell you I woke this morning genuinely afraid. For the first time in my life I am afraid of what can happen to me, and to my friends and neighbors and strangers, if we exercise inalienable rights that we cannot, must not, forfeit. This is not hyperbole, it is fact, and the fact is that the world looks a great deal darker today.

How else to process the preventative arrest of 294 law abiding citizens for the sole crime of attempting to express their political views in a constitutionally guaranteed fashion? Worse, this is the third time Montreal police have moved in to preemptively arrest a protest in its entirety in the space of one week, this lovely new staple of police tactics having been trotted out at the annual anti-police brutality march on the 15th and again to pre-empt a student protest on Tuesday, when 45 people were arrested.

Last night's shameful spectacle came courtesy of Municipal By-Law P-6, the little known municipal counterpart to the universally denounced, and now repealed, Bill 78/ Law 12. The municipal bylaw shares the requirement that protests must submit their route for approval by the police 24 hours in advance. Among other goodies, it also allows Montreal's Executive Committee to prohibit any peaceful assembly indefinitely, at their discretion and without notice. It should be noted that this almost certainly unconstitutional bylaw was passed by a municipal government with all the credibility and moral authority of a turnip.

At last night's demonstration the police declared the protest illegal before it began for failing to provide a route and ordered protesters to disperse. However, they waited only seconds between giving that order and kettling protesters, giving them no chance to comply.



But don't worry, say the police, they aren't infringing on anyone's right to protest, because no such right exists.

"Starting with the last three demonstrations, we have been intervening faster," Sergeant Jean-Bruno Latour, a spokesperson for the SPVM, told La Presse. "We do not want to hold citizens who wish to go to downtown Montreal hostage. The Charter [of rights and freedoms] protects the right to freedom of expression, but there is no right to protest." [Translated from French]

This rather jaw-dropping statement raised the ire of Véronique Robert, a criminal lawyer in Montreal. Her scathing rebuttal on the website of weekly newspaper Voir titled "Fear the police, not the protests" is a delicious take down of this absurd position, and if you read French I recommend reading it in its entirety. Here's a taste:

"This screwball assertion by an officer with the Montreal Police is scary, alarming and frightening, and leads to two conclusions: first, our police urgently need more law classes as part of their training. Second, things are not at all well in Quebec right now, and that frightens me." [Translated]

Robert goes on to patiently explain that peaceful assembly and protest is an integral part of freedom of expression, without which the right cannot exist. She points out that not only is our right to protest clearly and explicitly protected by our Charter, it is also protected by every document dealing with the protection of fundamental rights in the world, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

In 2005, the UN Human Rights Commission criticized, as it did again last year, mass arrests taking place in Montreal in the context of the last student strike, calling mass arrests by their very nature a violation of the right to freedom of expression. The commission called for a public inquiry into police actions, and questioned the article in the criminal code prohibiting illegal assembly.

"The state must ensure that the right to peacefully participate in a protest is respected, and that only those who have committed a criminal infraction during a protest are arrested." [Translated]

Robert concludes as follows:

"When the young, and the even younger, receive $614 [sic] tickets for participating in a public assembly, be afraid. When protest movements are bullied from the moment they are formed, be afraid. When the police detain citizens en masse for no reason, be afraid. When police conflate interrogation with arbitrary arrest for exercising a constitutional right, be afraid.

What should actually scare us, in Montreal, is the police and their totalitarian declarations. What we should fear is the state and our mode of governance. Not protesters." [Translated]

Canada

On June 27, 2010, 200 persons, including protesters and bystanders, were kettled in Toronto at the intersection of Queen St. and Spadina Ave. during the G20 summit. Several hundred people were also kettled outside of the Novotel Hotel on the Esplanade and arrested.[9] The following year the Toronto Police Department swore to never use kettling again.[10]

On March 15, 2011, 250–300 protesters in Montreal were kettled on St-Denis just north of Mont Royal during the Annual March Against Police Brutality. Police used stun grenades, riot gear, and horses to kettle the crowd.[11]

On May 23, 2012, police in Montreal moved in on student protesters, kettling them and making 518 arrests — the largest number in one night since the student protests began weeks earlier. [12]

On March 15, 2013, at the annual police brutality march, the police kettled a group of protesters on Ste-Catherine street in Montreal after the march was declared illegal for not presenting an itinerary before the protest. After almost two hours of attempting to break up the groups protesting the police closed in and arrested anyone caught in the kettle. At the end of the evening police have stated that there were around 250 arrests, 2 injured police officers and one protester that was unwell. [13]WIKI

Seems the Police is using this same Tactic just about anywhere!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling

makes it easier for the cops when we have no guns for them to worry about...

Exactly what the contrived gun laws are about in the U.S. The fewer citizens who have guns will make it that much easier for the police state to overpower the masses and further enslave us by chipping away at our rights.

they've been chipping away at our rights for years, and the liberals just seem to ignore it altogether... they keep saying how ridiculous the notion is, but everything the government does is pointed in that direction...

definitely!
Why do you think they are so paranoid about Citizens carrying Arms?

I remember a person was arrested in Canada a while back for free speech. They have an asterisk beside their free speech that you can be arrested if your speech may cause problems.

I think I figured out the problem...People have a REALLY hard time believing the truth, even when it bites them on the a$$!

I don't know anything about police tactics in Canada, but I do know that Canada doesn't have the Bill of Rights that the USA has.

What does it matter?...Human rights are not honoured by either country.

A lot of us has known that since the 60's...

PART I
BILL OF RIGHTS

1. It is hereby recognized and declared that in Canada there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely,

(a) the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law;
(b) the right of the individual to equality before the law and the protection of the law;
(c) freedom of religion;
(d) freedom of speech;
(e) freedom of assembly and of association; and
(f) freedom of the press.

2. Every law of Canada shall, unless it is expressly declared by an Act of Parliament of Canada that it shall operate notwithstanding the Canadian Bill of Rights, be so construed and applied as not to abrogate, abridge or infringe or to authorize the abrogation, abridgment or infringement of any of the rights or freedoms herein recognized and declared, and in particular, no law of Canada shall be construed or applied so as to

(a) authorize or effect the arbitrary detention, imprisonment or exile of a person;
(b) impose or authorize the imposition of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment;
(c) deprive a person who has been arrested or detained

(i) of the right to be informed promptly of the reason for his arrest or detention,
(ii) of the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay, or
(iii) of the remedy by way of habeas corpus for the determination of the validity of his detention and for his release if the detention is not lawful;

(d) authorize a court, tribunal, commission, board or other authority to compel a person to give evidence if he is denied counsel, protection against self-crimination or other constitutional safeguards;
(e) deprive a person of the right to a fair hearing in accordance to the principles of fundamental justice for the determination of his rights and obligations;
(f) deprive a person charged with a criminal offence of the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to the law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, or of the right to reasonable bail without just cause; and
(g) deprive a person of the right to the assistance to an interpreter in any proceedings in which he is involved or in which he is a party or a witness, before a court, commission, board or other tribunal, if he does not understand or speak the language in which such proceedings are conducted.

3. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the Minister of Justice shall, in accordance with such regulations as may be prescribed by the Governor General in Council, examine every regulation transmitted to the Clerk of the Privy Council for registration pursuant to the Statutory Instruments Act and every Bill introduced in or presented to the House of Commons by a Minister of the Crown in order to ascertain whether any of the provisions thereof are inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of this Part and he shall report any such inconsistency to the House of Commons at the first convenient opportunity.

(2) A regulation need not be examined in accordance with subsection (1) if prior to being made it was examined as a proposed regulation in accordance with section 3 of the Statutory Instruments Act to ensure that it was not inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of this Part.

4. The provisions of this Part shall be known as the Canadian Bill of Rights.


http://www.efc.ca/pages/law/canada/BillofRights.html


They mess up a few.

I will believe that Canada has freedoms of speech and religion when a person there can preach against homosexual behavior without being investigated by government officials or a government agency.

Oh? And what "rights" would those be?

No problem...everyone is entitled to their opinion. Henry Makow rants about immorality & homosexuality all the time. As far as I know, the government has left him alone to rant as he pleases.
The only things you have to avoid in Canada are "Hate Speech" and violating the Canadian Human Rights Act (unless you are a public servant or politician...Then you can get away with breaking the law with relative impunity...Pretty much the same as in the US)



Pretty well all of them, to spite the limitations "theoretically" imposed by things like the Canadian Human Rights Act, the ICESCR, ICCPR, The Canadian Constitution, the Canadian Bill of Rights, The Criminal Code of Canada (which contains their "escape clause"), etc.

It is far easier to list the rights they appear to honour than the ones they infringe with seeming impunity. As far as I know (and unlike the US with all the cop killings of innocents & drone killings of American citizens) they seem to still be honouring the right to life.

Oh Lord

This is in my backyard so I dare anyone to dispute the facts.


-We've been battling a student movement against tuition hikes(we have the lowest tuition fees in Canada)... yes public transportation was disrupted and rioting. Public property damaged.

-A seperatist agenda was voted in the province recently... Montreal is a multi-culturism city and has a robust anglo community under fire over language issues. Tensions are high

-every year, hoodlums have an organized protest against police brutality... Guess what? It ALWAYS turns violent. Funny, I've never been brutalized by police EVER?

Cripes, we win Stanley cups and our city goes up in flames and looted by organised riot gangs.

Like in almost every city in North America... There are rules to protesting... Enough of this velvet gloved crap. You want to protest? get a permit, stay in demonstration zones and stay peaceful.

I'm comfortable with these punks not having weapons... When things get violent, Police should shoot to injure those responsible.
Puck em!!!

While I never publicly protest myself (preferring to rant directly to the clowns responsible for the messes people protest about), I have to say that the very ideas of "permits" for (what should be free assembly) and "demonstration zones" (designed to keep people from airing grievances effectively) are nothing less than unlawful assaults on human rights.

The legislation, as well as the mindset that created these and many other atrocious "laws" reveals quite clearly who the enemies of freedom are. For the sake of the nation itself, they have to be rooted out, exposed, deposed and replaced if Canada is EVER to call itself the free country I once (ignorantly) thought it to be.

The people of Canada are the rightful Government of Canada. If the so-called "Government of Canada" most Canadians allow to govern their affairs can't govern properly (and they obviously can't), then it's well past time to govern the government, and replace it if necessary with one that works for the people of Canada instead of itself and a few corporate cronies.

"Rules to protesting" always struck me as an odd concept, just like the requirement of getting permits in a lot of cities here in the U.S.

The idea that I should in some way have to pay for or abide by some silly dictations to protest is quite honestly, simply laughable. Sure, it might turn to a riot, but usually it isn't us throwing the first swing and if it is than the only reason it grew was because we stepped up to the aid of someone.

Been there, done that...And I'd do it all again tomorrow if the opportunity presented itself. Protest is one of those necessities in order for society to continue to grow and function, it is the "Checks and balances" of the checks and balances. It is our way of making sure they don't go overboard.

I think that the most effective mode of "protest" is to send emails to specific ministers on screwed-up matters relating to their portfolio that will require a response from their office (or else you can make some lawful presumptions).

Of course it doesn't hurt to "cc" the rest of parliament just to keep everyone in the loop. (Ya never know if the opposition is gonna raise the issue in the house, or if the incumbent party will wind up with some dissension in the ranks over an issue)

I find that holding the feet of those who would trample us to the fire of law and public opinion is quite sufficient to give the buggers a hotfoot they'll not soon forget...It might even initiate some change for the better.

I wish everyone would clog the inboxes of their government "reps" like that...If enough people did, I'm sure there would be a bloodless "coup" that puts "We the People" back where they belong...at the top of the power pyramid.

the government putting people in these protester marches to start riots is not completely out of the question... it sounds like Canada is following the same "guidelines" that the US and other countries to keep citizens from organizing against the government... IMO, the leaders seem scared of the people right now, and are passing laws to keep themselves in control...