Politics - Federal

It's Official: Quebec Police Admit Agents Provocateurs Were Undercover Officers

By Ryan McGreal
Published August 23, 2007

CBC has the scoop:

Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that three of their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

However, the police force denied allegations its undercover officers were there on Monday to provoke the crowd and instigate violence.

Nonsense. The video footage is quite unambiguous about what the agents were up to: they were trying to incite violence so the police could crack down on the protesters with justification.

The Surete de Quebec press release noted, "It is not in the police force's policies, nor in its strategies, to act in that manner."

That certainly ought to be the case, of course; that the police clearly did so anyway suggests they were taking sides in the political conflict rather than simply upholding the law.

Ryan McGreal, the editor of Raise the Hammer, lives in Hamilton with his family and works as a programmer, writer and consultant. Ryan volunteers with Hamilton Light Rail, a citizen group dedicated to bringing light rail transit to Hamilton. Ryan wrote a city affairs column in Hamilton Magazine, and several of his articles have been published in the Hamilton Spectator. His articles have also been published in The Walrus, HuffPost and Behind the Numbers. He maintains a personal website, has been known to share passing thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, and posts the occasional cat photo on Instagram.

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By Rocky (anonymous) | Posted August 23, 2007 at 22:05:23

I guess the rock the one cop was holding was some kind of "peace rock". Maybe an "incident prevention" rock.

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By w willy (registered) | Posted August 27, 2007 at 12:28:37

No real surprise here, given that even the Hamilton Police Service have employed agents provocateurs, if one remembers from the Red Hill issue a couple of years ago.

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By Ted Mitchell (registered) | Posted August 27, 2007 at 21:56:32

One would hope that people of all political stripes would be appalled at this.

The fact that some defend this kind of behaviour does not look good on the human race. There is no rational way of justifying it, it can only be born from pure hate.

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