FLQ Threat

[scribblet]

I'm putting this here as I believe any threat of this type could affect the whole country. It is hard to believe that the FLQ could be raising their ugly heads again and threatening terrorism. I wonder if something happened, would Harper impose Martial law ?

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/01/18/flq-letter.html

Letters threaten FLQ attacks in Montreal

An RCMP spokesman says the force is taking "very seriously" a recent threatening letter signed by a group claiming to be a new cell of the FLQ, a Quebec militant group active in the 1960s and 1970s.

The letter, dated Jan. 15, says "strategic targets of importance" will be targeted in the western, largely English-speaking part of Montreal between Feb. 15 and March 15.

It mentions crowded shopping malls, bridges, rail lines, airport facilities, water supplies, municipal buildings and service stations.

"We will especially target traffic on main highways," says the letter.

The letter says the plan of attack is designed "for maximum impact" and warns "it's possible there will be injuries and deaths.

[BC_chick]

I'm putting this here as I believe any threat of this type could affect the whole country. It is hard to believe that the FLQ could be raising their ugly heads again and threatening terrorism. I wonder if something happened, would Harper impose Martial law ?

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/01/18/flq-letter.html

Letters threaten FLQ attacks in Montreal

An RCMP spokesman says the force is taking "very seriously" a recent threatening letter signed by a group claiming to be a new cell of the FLQ, a Quebec militant group active in the 1960s and 1970s.

The letter, dated Jan. 15, says "strategic targets of importance" will be targeted in the western, largely English-speaking part of Montreal between Feb. 15 and March 15.

It mentions crowded shopping malls, bridges, rail lines, airport facilities, water supplies, municipal buildings and service stations.

"We will especially target traffic on main highways," says the letter.

The letter says the plan of attack is designed "for maximum impact" and warns "it's possible there will be injuries and deaths.

Very interesting. Two conflicting parts in the article though. One carefully placed as the opening statement of the article:

"An RCMP spokesman says the force is taking "very seriously" a recent threatening letter signed by a group claiming to be a new cell of the FLQ, a Quebec militant group active in the 1960s and 1970s. "

Yet, at the very end of the article (where one is to assume the people have given up reading), we have the following:

"The RCMP stressed there was no indication those responsible for the letter could carry out their threats.

'So far we have no indication they can do what they're saying,' Bessette added. "

Hmmmmm

[mikedavid00]

The letter says the plan of attack is designed "for maximum impact" and warns "it's possible there will be injuries and deaths.

Welll that's good. The Nation of Quebec can handle their own terrorism then.

I think the FLQ should be more concerned with Islamic terrorists in Quebec rather than English speaking Quebecers. Imagine that if they threatened to go to war with the Islamists in Montreal.. now THAT would be something.. a first of it's kind.

I feel if there are attacks, then Canada will give in to the terrorists. After all, that's what we do in Canada. (native protests, Islamists, etc).

[Leafless]

I'm putting this here as I believe any threat of this type could affect the whole country. It is hard to believe that the FLQ could be raising their ugly heads again and threatening terrorism. I wonder if something happened, would Harper impose Martial law ?

Harper is already displaying political unaccountability by currently displaying unnatural catering to a province that refuses to stand on its own two feet.

If the FLQ were ever that brazen and arrogant enough to pull something like this off it could certainly be acknowledged 'as the straw that broke the camels back'...GOODBYE QUEBEC AND GOOD RIDDENCE.

[Army Guy]

Now here is a worth while cause, a bunch of scumbags willing to kill over what, english signs now there is a cause.... Is this a major problem in Quebec, is there that much friction between the french and english..

This needs to be taken serious and quickly, hoax or not our government needs to send a strong message, terrorist activites will not be tolerated. you will be hunted down and punished, Or anybody with an axe to grind is going to start sending letters in with threats.

[August1991]

The letter was sent to Bob Benedetti, described in the letter as the "loudmouth" mayor of the Montreal suburb of Beaconsfield...

Nothing excuses making threats of this sort but you haved to also understand the context of Beaconsfield in Quebec.

Town councillors in Beaconsfield voted Monday to defy a Quebec law that requires it to change its English-language street names to French.

It was a quick vote, and the decision was unanimous.

"To offer [a] suggestion to change the character of a street name that's been there for 100 years is just not acceptable to us," said Beaconsfield Mayor Bob Benedetti.

Benedetti said the province's Office de la langue française (OLF) has been after the city before on the street-sign issue, and has already fined it $2,000 for having signs that don't conform to the province's Charter of the French Language.

CBC

Quebec's English-speaking minority cannot be compared to English-Canada's French-speaking minority.

[madmax]

I feel if there are attacks, then Canada will give in to the terrorists. After all, that's what we do in Canada. (native protests, Islamists, etc).

Sure Mike, terrorist attacks in Canada, we will just give in.

[madmax]

If the FLQ were ever that brazen and arrogant enough to pull something like this off it could certainly be acknowledged 'as the straw that broke the camels back'...GOODBYE QUEBEC AND GOOD RIDDENCE.

Really, I think just the opposite. It will totally undermine the Bloc, and the PQ.

[tml12]

Beaconsfield is mostly anglo...August are you saying that you disagree with the town's decision to not change the names of the signs?

Trudeau added the Minority Language Education Rights part of the Charter to undermine Bill 101. Based on the Charter and the national myth of bilingualism, Bill 101 remains unconstitutional.

Nobody is comparing the English minority here to the French minority in Canada but the fact remains that the abuse needs to stop.

[gc1765]

I feel if there are attacks, then Canada will give in to the terrorists. After all, that's what we do in Canada. (native protests, Islamists, etc).

Huh? "Give in" as in prosecute them?

[geoffrey]

Beaconsfield is mostly anglo...August are you saying that you disagree with the town's decision to not change the names of the signs?

I think August agrees with the decision of the counsillors and is just pointing out why the anger is there... but I've never quite figured out if he's a francophone or an anglophone... he writes equally well in both languages from what I can tell with my 'Ottawa' French. I haven't even figured out if he's a separtist for that matter.

It's apparently now obvious that he's not an FLQ supporter.

Maybe I won't make my Montreal trip this summer if everyone all in a terrorism frenzy. What's the average Montrealer thinking about this threat? Are people actually worried?

[Catchme]

Wow, those FLQ dudes must be pushing 65-70 years old nowadays. That they have been unheard from in 40 years and show up now boggles the mind even more. Weird I say weird.

Interesting point about the War Measures Act too.

[tml12]

Beaconsfield is mostly anglo...August are you saying that you disagree with the town's decision to not change the names of the signs?

I think August agrees with the decision of the counsillors and is just pointing out why the anger is there... but I've never quite figured out if he's a francophone or an anglophone... he writes equally well in both languages from what I can tell with my 'Ottawa' French. I haven't even figured out if he's a separtist for that matter.

It's apparently now obvious that he's not an FLQ supporter.

Maybe I won't make my Montreal trip this summer if everyone all in a terrorism frenzy. What's the average Montrealer thinking about this threat? Are people actually worried?

The RCMP has to take any terrorism threat seriously. I do not think most people are worried and I do not think it should make you cancel your trip (especially because the threat was for between February 15 and March 15) but that being said, people should always be on guard.

[geoffrey]

Oh I wouldn't cancel a trip because I feared getting attacked in Montreal, though I'd be one of those subhuman anglophones...

I'm just saying if everyone is all in high security mode, it wouldn't be nearly as fun.

Personally I'd be very suprised to see an actual move by the 'FLQ.' Then again, I'm not in Quebec, I don't have a feeling for the political climate.

[Catchme]

This really should be put in perspective currently and historically.

Let us remember the lessons about our secret police so painfully learned during Canada’s last brush with terrorism and its suppression: the 1970 FLQ crisis and the invocation of the War Measures Act. Public hysteria was whipped up then, too, by leaked claims of the secret police and politicians that FLQ terrorists had infiltrated all key institutions in Quebec...It was all a pack of lies, of course, but it led to a wave of arrests and violations of civil liberties focused in Quebec, but affecting suspected individuals and groups all across Canada. And the suppression enjoyed almost universal public support.

In the years after...Canadians learned how they had been manipulated by the secret police and politicians in power, thanks to Ottawa’s Royal Commission of Inquiry Into Certain Activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the McDonald Commission) and Quebec’s Keeble Inquiry into Illegal Police Activities. These inquiries exposed the dirty tricks and illegal actions employed by the secret police against not only the FLQ, but the democratic sovereignty movement, as well as other individuals and groups on a list of “the politically suspect” (including MPs, election candidates, student groups, and trade unionists).

....The McDonald Commission also reported a long list of dirty tricks and illegal actions carried out by the secret police, though these did not result in charges and trials (and portions of the report have yet to be released). These included over 400 illegal break-ins, thefts of dynamite, theft of the membership list of the Parti Québécois, an act of arson, unauthorized mail openings, surveillance of MPs and candidates for office, investigations of the NDP’s Waffle group, illegal detentions involving psychological and physical violence to recruit informers, forging and releasing documents under the FLQ’s name calling for violence to win independence, the massive infiltration of the FLQ to the point where by 1972 secret police agents had a voting majority in the organization. The list goes on and on.

Most of the perpetrators of the dirty tricks and illegal activities among the ranks of the secret police were never charged, and those who were charged either received unconditional discharges upon pleading guilty, or the charges were later dropped. In other words, the secret police were, in practice, not subject to the laws of the land but could cynically violate them at will in the name of “national security.” As a result, the McDonald Royal Commission recommended that, in future, the police--including the secret police—cease all illegal activities, that mail openings and break-ins occur only under the oversight of a judge, and, allegedly most importantly, that the secret police be removed from the RCMP and that a civilian secret police agency be set up. In 1984, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was accordingly established.

FLQ info

Let's hop forward to today, looking back at 2002:

..what about the directive from the McDonald Commission that the police, including the secret police, always act within the law? Such a directive, if scrupulously heeded, would make it very tough for the secret police to do what secret police do. Well, that problem has been solved. There is a new “doublethink” law allowing the police to act illegally while allegedly upholding the law. If that sounds a bit Orwellian, that’s because it is: a law making breaking the law legal while enforcing the law.

This new so-called Immunity Law was passed in February 2002, and it allows police agents of all sorts to commit crimes in the line of duty. Any crime can be committed except those involving obstructing justice, sex crimes, and violence causing bodily harm (making violence that leaves no marks or breaks no bones perfectly legal). During 2004-05, as Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day recently admitted, many crimes were committed by police covered by the immunity statute...

With the secret police now unconstrained by law, our democracy and our civil liberties are in big trouble. The next sensational terrorist bust could well involve a “sleeper cell” made up of a majority of secret police agents.

Now here is a PQ site detailing what happened when and outcome.

[Borg]

Bomb threats? Separatists?

Never happen.

Why - because the average Kebec person would not want to lose the gravy train of money coming on from western Canada.

All talk - no action - nothing to see here folks - move along ... move along ......

Borg

[mikedavid00]

The RCMP has to take any terrorism threat seriously. I do not think most people are worried and I do not think it should make you cancel your trip (especially because the threat was for between February 15 and March 15) but that being said, people should always be on guard.

I do take these threats seriously and am on gaurd.

The advent of the internet allows terrorists to find each other, plan, and organize remotely. People wonder how there is all these new waves of Mexicans coming in over the border.. it's nothing new actually, it's just the internet allowed mexican's to easily find smuggling services to escore them over the border. The same is happening with our immigration system and we're getting amongst the lowest quality people now in Canada and Europe in the past 10 years.

In the GTA, I definitely choose not to take a subway or use public transit just for this reason. I'd rather wait in parking and pay for parking because I beleive it's only a matter of time. I also do not visit the CN tower.

If many people including myself believe it's only a 'matter of time' before we see an attack in Canada, I will not chose to put myself in harms way.

Many will say "then you let the terrorists win".

No I didn't. My gov't did. My gov't is elected to govern on behalf of CANADIANS. My gov't is too busy playing religious and world politics to secure voting blocks at the threat of my saftey as a Canadian and is imposing a threat onto Canada.

Police officers here in the GTA are not allowed to ask someone's immigration status which is being challenged in court becuase it' violating the mandate for our police to provide us safety.

But eh, let's all watch Little Mosque on the Prarie and sing koom by a.

[Catchme]

Letting fear control one's life is not good and even worse when it is unsubstantiated and implausable.

Who would you be afraid of regarding the FLQ?

Again according to the Macdonald Commissionon:

by 1972 secret police agents had a voting majority in the (FLQ) organization

[Proud Canuck]

I feel if there are attacks, then Canada will give in to the terrorists. After all, that's what we do in Canada. (native protests, Islamists, etc).

When did we give in to native protesters and Islamists?

Was it when the Mohawks stopped the village of Oka from building a golf course on a native cemetery? (http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-71-99/conflict_war/oka/)

Was it when 30 Mohawk protesters set up a barricade in Deseronto to protest development on the disputed Culbertson Lan Tract? (http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2007/01/10/cp-deseronto.html)

Was it when the OPP shot unarmed native protester Dudley George at Ipperwash because he wanted the sacred indian Burial Ground returned by the Federal Government (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/ipperwash/)?

Was it in 1999 when Lloyd Axworthy urged the Russians to deal "forcefully" with Islamic "extremists" in Chechnya even though thousands of terrified Chechnyans were trying to flee Russian bombing which had gone on for 6 days? (http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/1999/09/28/chechnya990928.html)?

When did we ever give in to anybody!?

[kimmy]

Very interesting. Two conflicting parts in the article though. One carefully placed as the opening statement of the article:

"An RCMP spokesman says the force is taking "very seriously" a recent threatening letter signed by a group claiming to be a new cell of the FLQ, a Quebec militant group active in the 1960s and 1970s. "

Yet, at the very end of the article (where one is to assume the people have given up reading), we have the following:

"The RCMP stressed there was no indication those responsible for the letter could carry out their threats.

'So far we have no indication they can do what they're saying,' Bessette added. "

The threat itself is a serious criminal matter, even if it was perpetrated by dumb-ass kids who have no idea how to make a bomb and no intention of ever trying to. Even if the whole thing was intended as a joke, it's a very serious matter and I see no reason why the law shouldn't search vigorously for those responsible and punish them to the maximum possible extent.

Personally, I'm almost hoping something happens. Obviously I am not hoping that anyone gets hurt, but at the same time I think that if this was for real, it could start a chain of events that drives the final nails in the coffin of Quebec separatism as a legitimate political movement.

-k