Action: The October Crisis of 1970

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  I remember delivering the Sunday express in Baie D'Urfe Quebec at the time. The front page showed an open trunk of a car with the dead body of Pierre Laporte.

  onemon22, 5 Oct 2019

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  The FLQ levied war against Canada which constitutes treason. Why were none of them ever charged with treason (then a capital crime)? Tommy Douglas' complaints are ludicrous: The War Measures Act delegates emergency power to the cabinet; and that law was enacted by our democratically elected Parliament. All democratic constitutions permit the use of extraordinary powers in exigent circumstances. Freedom is never absolute.

  sixam, 9 Mar 2014

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  I was fourteen at the time. We lived in North Bay, and my mom worked for the Department Of National Defense at CFB North Bay, Dad would sometimes take my sister along when he drove up to the base to pick my mom up from work. The base was bristling with armed soldiers, and there were check points at every gate. Dad had show his ID just to get on the base. Where my sister and I went to school was right across the road from the Major Leo Troy Armoury. We could look out the classroom windows and watch the militia coming and going. It was both frightening and interesting. Our teachers gave up on the curriculum, and talked about what was going on in Quebec. Mom, due to the nature of her job, could not tell us everything but she did her best. Dad was ex RCAF, and he could explain a lot of the weaponry we saw.

  tiger2338, 21 Mar 2013

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  Living in NB at the time, and a bit young to fully understand or comprehend, I DO remember the adults be concerned to the point of being scared.

  SuperNova59, 8 Mar 2012

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  As an English Montrealer with thick French bloodlines, I ived in NDG at the time, but my mother worked for Bell Canada on University St. She was always coming home and telling us about her being escorted by two military personnel from the offices to the CN Station across the street. Although my mother liked her being protected, she was always concerned by the reality of what was actually happening to us all. Maybe this is why I later joined the Canadian Armed Forces cause as a teenager, I loved to see the soldiers in action. During this whole crisis I was delivering papers for the Montreal Star where I walked from my small apartment in NDG to a mansion home in Westmount Hills, picked up and then packed my 130 papers for delivery on Queen Masry Road. Not too big an issue during the week, but on Sundays instead of the twn bags slung across each shoulder I had four to contend with. They were so heavy I had to walk and carry each one by itself, doing many trips back and forth before I could start delivering them. This was an essentially an all day thing and was very exhausting resulting in my making very little money even at Christmas time doing my collections. My delivery area was the main apartment buildings on Queen Mary Road, west of St. Joseph's Oratory, and the same buildings that housed the FLQ cells who were directly responsible for the kidnapping and the eventual assination of the British Minister to Canada, Mr. Cross. They hid and lived in apartments with false walls which had to be specially accessed to gain entry. This baffled not only the RCMP but CAF soldiers as well. What I remember most about the FLQ crisis, was the disinterest and lack of political willpower that not only Pierre Laport but also of Elliot Trudeau displayed to the world. I then found out the Trudeau was previously a FLQ lawyer prior to his becoming Prime Minister and the Rene Levesque was running the show back then. Another issue was that out of the French Montrealers, only the radical students and other individfuals supported what the FLQ was doing in the form of terrorist bombings and kidnappings. The end result was that those responsible for the entire FLQ crisis, who were caught and brought to federal courts and tried, instead of life sentences for murder, they were let loose to live in Cuba while being exhiled from Canada for the next 12 years. Then after that time, were allowed back into Canada and PQ to not only pick up where they lkeft off, but to bore themselves deep into Canadian and specifically Quebec's politics. This is why there is a Part-Quebecois party still alive after all this time. I left Canada after growing up in M<ontreal, attending college for three years then serving in the Canadian Armed Forces for 5 years as an Airborne Infantry soldier who also saw duties in Germany and through a year period of OP Magnet 2, when the Laoation, Cambodian and South Vienamese refugees were let into Canada the second time. I left Canada after on duty in 1979 during the Iranian Hostage situation, after seeing the dead bodies of US soldiers being displayed after the failed Desert One Rescue Mission to join the US Marine Corps where after 26 years I could be part of a democratic society , forged through strife yet not be swayed by world opinion like Canada certainly was in the FLQ Crisis as a result of the kind of politicians which represented us then. I have seen duty in the Gulf War and recenctly in Iraq three times but have yet to feel like I have finally come home. The current Aboriginal challenges and issues make me sense that while this crisis ended, it is certainly not over. To my fellow Canadian military friends and comrades, let us that know of war and strife be at the lead end of public affairs so politicians cannot blindly lead others like before. Je me souviens.... Living in Montreal then was like being in Northern Ireland, where innocent bystanders waiting at bust stops would be indiscriminately killed as the blast tore into their bodies. I kept wondering when this would happen to my mother and was always expecting some official to come to our home and report she had been killed. When the FLQ members were finally caught, by other members snitching and reporting their whereabouts; not by police or miliotary investigations

  MikeeCali, 10 Feb 2012

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  I was living on Maiseneuve, 3 stories up, 2 blocks crossways from where the taxi drivers gathered, when the QPP moved in cause Montreal police were on strike. I had no idea what was happening. I was painting, in my room, watercolour, of the lights flashing on red brick wall across the street, 3 stories up....I went down to get a cup of coffee from a corner diner 2 doors over about 2 A.M. and a QPP car come screeching in front of me with men with Tommy guns throwing me against the red brick wall with barrels poking into my kidneys...I could feel the blood running down my cheek...and the red brick wall. Then the FLQ struck. Soon there were machine gun nests on Mont Royale and army trucks surrounding blocks at a time with jeeps at corners mounted with machine guns. I left town. You see that one and a half year prior I was in Vietnam, almost to the day in the Marine Corp in my first combat. I left and got a job in St. Adele at the Quidi Vidi where Pierre and Margaret would come when they went skiing. I was the pantry chef. I made their o'deurves. Later in life I would crossroads with them again....with sun shining and river running by. I left. I went to B.C. Haida Gwaii. I had enough of war...enough of killing....Canada was a way out of it and when the October Crisis came....I didn't know if I was following it...or it was following me. I left. I became a fisherman. God bless Canada and God bless Quebec and God bless the Canadian Film Board for remembering me to make these comments.

  Dogfish, 28 Dec 2011

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  I was living on Maiseneuve, 3 stories up, 2 blocks crossways from where the taxi drivers gathered, when the QPP moved in cause Montreal police were on strike. I had no idea what was happening. I was painting, in my room, watercolour, of the lights flashing on red brick wall across the street, 3 stories up....I went down to get a cup of coffee from a corner diner 2 doors over about 2 A.M. and a QPP car come screeching in front of me with men with Tommy guns throwing me against the red brick wall with barrels poking into my kidneys...I could feel the blood running down my cheek...and the red brick wall. Then the FLQ struck. Soon there were machine gun nests on Mont Royale and army trucks surrounding blocks at a time with jeeps at corners mounted with machine guns. I left town. You see that one and a half year prior I was in Vietnam, almost to the day in the Marine Corp in my first combat. I left and got a job in St. Adele at the Quidi Vidi where Pierre and Margaret would come when they went skiing. I was the pantry chef. I made their o'deurves. Later in life I would crossroads with them again....with sun shining and river running by. I left. I went to B.C. Haida Gwaii. I had enough of war...enough of killing....Canada was a way out of it and when the October Crisis came....I didn't know if I was following it...or it was following me. I left. I became a fisherman. God bless Canada and God bless Quebec and God bless the Canadian Film Board for remembering me to make these comments.

  Dogfish, 28 Dec 2011

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  Good movie. I like how you took an effort to show multiple perspectives ranging from the NDP to the Conservatives, as well as people from both within and outside of Quebec. I would like to have seen a little more about Duplessis, though. From this movie and The Champions film, it seems like the Duplessis regime in Quebec shaped the points of view of Trudeau, Levesque and the FLQ. Do you jhave any movies that could explain what happened during the Duplessis regime?

  DFB, 26 Apr 2010

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