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October Crisis

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 the Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoking the War Measures Act for the first time in Canadian history during peacetime.

This article is about the 1970 event in Canada. For other uses, see October Crisis (disambiguation).

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 Canadian 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, and ended on December 28.


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[edit]

From 1963 to 1970, the Quebec nationalist group Front de libération du Québec detonated over 200 bombs.[2] 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,[3] armed forces recruiting offices, railway tracks, statues,[4][5] 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,[6] 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."[7]


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.[8]

October 5: Montreal, Quebec: Two members of the "" 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.[9] 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.

Liberation Cell

October 8: Broadcast of the FLQ Manifesto in all French- and English-speaking media outlets in Quebec.

October 10: Montreal, Quebec: Members of the of the FLQ approach the home of the Quebec Minister of Labour, Pierre Laporte, while he is playing football with his nephew on his front lawn. These members kidnap Laporte.

Chénier Cell

October 11: The broadcasts a letter from captivity[10] from Pierre Laporte to the Premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa.[11]

CBC

October 12: General sends troops from the Royal 22e Régiment to guard federal property in the Montreal region, by request of the federal government.[12] Lawyer Robert Lemieux is appointed by the FLQ to negotiate the release of James Cross and Pierre Laporte. The Quebec government appoints Robert Demers.[13]

Gilles Turcot

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".

[14]

October 14: Sixteen prominent Quebec personalities, including René Lévesque and , call for negotiating "exchange of the two hostages for the political prisoners". FLQ's lawyer Robert Lemieux urges Université de Montréal (University of Montreal) students to boycott classes in support of FLQ.

Claude Ryan

October 15: : The negotiations between the lawyers Lemieux and Demers are put to an end.[15][16] The Government of Quebec formally requests the intervention of the Canadian army 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[17] 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[11] and states "We are going to win because there are more boys ready to shoot members of Parliament than there are policemen."[18] The rally frightens many Canadians, who view it as a possible prelude to outright insurrection in Quebec.

Quebec City

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 4:00 a.m. Prime Minister Trudeau makes a broadcast announcing the imposition of the War Measures Act.

[19]

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 , 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:

  1. The publication of the FLQ manifesto
  2. The release of 23 "political prisoners"
  3. 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).
  4. The re-hiring of the "gars de Lapalme".
  5. A "voluntary tax" of 500,000 dollars to be loaded aboard the plane prior to departure.
  6. The name of the informer who had sold out the FLQ activists earlier in the year.[20]
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.[21]

Saint-Hubert Airport

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."

[22]

November 6: Police raid the hiding place of the FLQ's Chénier cell. Although three members escape the raid, is arrested and charged with the kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte.

Bernard Lortie

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.[23] 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.[24]

[15]

December 23: Prime Minister announces that all troops stationed in Quebec will be withdrawn by January 5, 1971.[25]

Pierre Trudeau

December 28: : 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 6m tunnel in a rural farming community. They would later be charged with the kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte.

Saint-Luc, Quebec

, a fictionalised account by Northern Irish-Canadian novelist Brian Moore of key events in Quebec's October Crisis, was published in Canada and the United States at the end of 1971.

The Revolution Script

Canadian playwright 's Captives of the Faceless Drummer was inspired by the October Crisis. The Vancouver Playhouse chose not to stage it as it was deemed too controversial.[42]

George Ryga

Action: The October Crisis of 1970 and , two 1973 documentary films by Robin Spry.[43]

Reaction: A Portrait of a Society in Crisis

(Les Ordres), a historical film drama directed by Michel Brault, based on the events of the October Crisis and the effect that implementation of the War Measures Act had on people in Quebec,[44] was released in September 1974.

Orders

Quebec director shot in 1994 a movie titled Octobre which tells a version of the October Crisis based on a book by Francis Simard.[45]

Pierre Falardeau

is partially set in Montreal during the October Crisis and features fictional FLQ members planning a bombing.[46]

Nô

produced a two-hour documentary program Black October in 2000, in which the events of the crisis were discussed in great detail. The program featured interviews with former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, former Quebec justice minister Jérôme Choquette, and others.[47]

CBC Television

La Belle province, a 2001 documentary film by Ad Hoc Films Montreal / Tele-Quebec, portrays events leading to the death of Pierre Laporte.

[48]

In L'Otage, a 2004 documentary film by Ad Hoc Films Montreal / Tele-Quebec, Richard Cross, his wife and his daughter remember how they suffered during October 1970.

Tout le monde en parlait «La crise d'Octobre I» 2010, is a documentary relating the events of October 1970.[49][50]

Radio Canada

An eight-part about some of the incidents of the October Crisis titled October 1970 was released on October 12, 2006.[51]

miniseries

Just Watch Me: A Trudeau Musical, a 2015 play, was performed at the Vancouver Fringe Festival.

[52]

Kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro

Bouthillier, Guy; Cloutier, Édouard (2010). Trudeau's Darkest Hour: War Measures in Time of Peace, October 1970. Montréal: Baraka Books.  978-1-926824-04-8.

ISBN

Coté, Robert (2003). Ma guerre contre le FLQ. Montreal: Trait d'union.

D'Arcy, Jenish (2019). The Making of the October Crisis. .

Doubleday Canada

Demers, Robert. . Archived from the original on February 24, 2014. Retrieved May 24, 2013.

"Memories of October 70 (2010)"

Denis, Charles (2006). Robert Bourassa – La passion de la politique. Montreal: Fides.

English, John (2009). . Alfred A. Knopf Canada. ISBN 978-0-676-97523-9.

Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 1968–2000

Fournier, Louis (1984). F.L.Q.: the anatomy of an underground movement. Toronto: NC Press.  9780919601918. OCLC 11406935.

ISBN

Haggart, Ron; Golden, Audrey (1971). Rumours of War. Toronto: New Press.

Laurendeau, Marc (1975). Les Québécois violents. Montreal: Boreal.

—McGill University

"The Events Preliminary to the Crisis" in chronological order – 1960 to October 5, 1970

—McGill University

"The October Crisis per se" in chronological order – October 5 to December 29, 1970

Munroe, H.D. "The October Crisis revisited: Counterterrorism as a strategic choice, political result, and organizational practice". Terrorism and Political Violence 21.2 (2009): 288–305.

Saywell, John, ed. (1971). . University of Toronto Press. pp. 3–152. ISBN 9780802001528. Detailed factual coverage.

Canadian Annual Review for 1970

(2006). The October Crisis, 1970: An Insiders View. McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-3118-1.

Tetley, William

*

CBC Digital Archives – The October Crisis: Civil Liberties Suspended

from The Canadian Encyclopedia

"Terrorism and Canada"

Witness: The October Crisis in Canada, an interview with former journalist Vince Carlin about his experience of the crisis, first broadcast on October 16, 2015.

BBC World Service