The GRC and civil liberties in the years 1970

This article treats GRC and civil liberties in the Années 1970 .

Initial fact

With Montreal in 1974, Robert Samson, an agent of the royal Gendarmerie of Canada (GRC) is stopped after being hospitalized. The bends that it posed him having exploded in the Main S. Very quickly, it seems that Samson is corrupted and occasional bomb planter for members of the shady world. Questioned in preliminary audience for its Lawsuit, he exclaims: I made quite worse for the GRC!
Thereafter, he declares being the person in charge of a burgling which has occurred the October 6th 1972 at the free news agency of the Quebec, a News agency with tendency of left. The operation having for goal to put the hand on documents being able to compromise militants of the movements on the left and independence movement Québécois. Very quickly, the public opinion and the Média S require a Enquête.

Various commissions

In 1976, the Parti Québécois, directed by Rene Lévesque takes the to be able at the time of the provincial election S and, the following year creates the commission Keable to inquire into the possible implication of the GRC in a series of illegal acts. The First liberal minister for the Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, commits himself cooperating fully with the commission.

In the facts, it seems that the Federal government frequently makes obstruction with work of the commission and is even marked to be delivered to a campaign of denigration , going until Calomnie S relating to the personal life of the Juge Keable. It disputes the Juridiction of it in front of the courts. Finally, the Supreme court of Canada rules that a provincial board of inquiry cannot inquire into a federal organization, but should be satisfied to inquire into specific Crime S. The Trudeau government in addition creates its own commission, chaired by judge David McDonald, a former president of the Liberal party of the Alberta. The commission McDonald carries out most of its work with Door - closed. In the political context of the Years 1970, with the promise of a Referendum on the Sovereignty of Quebec, the revelations of such an investigation could have been politically explosive. Nevertheless the two commissions make known with the public of many interesting facts.

Results of the commissions

The commission Keable discovers that, at least in the years which followed the crisis of October 1970, the GRC engaged in an extensive program of Espionnage of the groups Nationaliste S Québécois, including the Parti Québécois (PQ), political party legally constitué.
This monitoring campaign includes infringements with the legislation such as:

burgling at the free news agency of Quebec (APLQ) ( See higher ).
the flight of lists of members of the PQ in January 1973, during the operation “Ham” is a burgling with the company “Transport Dynamic Inc. ” which implied 66 agents of the GRC.
the criminal Fire, in 1971, of a barn where was to be held a meeting between members of the Front of Release of Quebec (FLQ) and Black Panthers American, the place belonged to a named company “free Jazz of Quebec” and was the appointment various protestors groups.
the emission of 13 false official statements of the FLQ in 1971, written for the majority by informatrice Carole Devault, within the framework of the setting-up of a false cell of the FLQ, the cell Andre Ouimet . The false cell will assert a Attentat with the bomb flamer with the company “Brink' S” of Montreal in January of the same year.
flight of Dynamite, in the night of the 26 with the April 27th 1972, in the explosives magazine of the “Richelieu Explosives” of Rougemont, by the gendarme Rick Daigle as well as the corporals Bernard Dubuc and Normand Chamberland.
the kidnapping of Andre Chamard, Training in a study of right taking part in defense of shown FLQ, the June 7th 1972, with the participation in particular of the gendarme Rick Daigle. The agents initially tried to recruit it like indicating by making it sing for a business of Drogue, by maltreating it and by uttering threats of Mort. In front of its refusal to cooperate, they gave up it in full shift.

The Québécois board of inquiry reveals the names of three officers having authorized burgling with the APLQ: the Cobb superintendent, of the GRC, as well as the inspector Jean Cutler of the Safety of Quebec and the inspector Roger Cormier of the police force of Montreal. The three men profit from a release on behalf of a Tribunal in 1977; release which was not justified according to certain observers.

For its part, the commission McDonald discovers that the GRC opened without Mandat the letter S of 865 citizens between 1970 and 1977. The opening of these private correspondences will not allow any arrestation.
She also inquires into seven attempts, in 1971 and 1972, to recruit Indicateur S while using of threats and intimidation. The majority do not belong to any suspect.
group The sergeant Laurent Hugo tells, with colleagues, to have removed a man in the street, without mandate, and to have sequestered it during 15 hours in a room of Hôtel, making him undergo a “muscular” interrogation accompanied by physical pressures such as forcing it to be held upright in a corner vis-a-vis the wall. No information is obtained for this kidnapping. The man is slackened without no charge being carried against him.

The Prime Minister Trudeau denies to have been informed of these acts although documents made public of the years later prove that it chaired the meeting of the cabinet which authorizes the GRC with enfreindre expressly the Loi S to fight the “Séparatisme”, as of 1969. He refuses to testify in public before the commission which finally gives up convening it.

Carole Devault, former informatrice of the GRC infiltrated in the FLQ, tells to have, under the orders of the GRC, recruited teenagers like member of the FLQ and to have written false official statements, after the crisis of October and the crushing of the FLQ. These operations aim at maintaining the myth of an always active FLQ in order to compromise members of protest movements which could be tried to join it.

In 1981, the commission Keable publishes a report of 450 pages, after which forty four criminal charges were carried against ten seven agents and ex-agents of the GRC. The Safety of Quebec and organizes it of Montreal are also criticized for the little of case that these two bodies of police force made civil liberties and fundamental Droit S of the Citoyen S, like for their difficulty of distinguishing the Dissidence from the Subversion.

A few months later, the commission McDonald publishes, in its turn, a report of 2.400 pages, heavily censured. The publication was delayed by it for seven months. Moreover, six volumes of testimonys makes with Door - closed was never published. No charge is carried against anyone.

Nevertheless, the federal commission announces that old the Commissaire of the GRC, William Higgit, misled the government about the illegal electronic listenings practiced during years and that it omitted to announce to the Gouvernement the attempts to choke the affaire.
Of its successor Maurice Nadon, she adds that it misled a parliamentary committee about the opening of the mail and missed with his duty while not prevailing against the agent culprits of Infraction S with the Loi.
The commission qualifies also “inadmissible” fact that John Starnes, managing director of the security service of 1970 with 1973, authorized burgling with the APLQ and the flight of lists of members of the PQ. She refuses to name the agents of lower level having taken part in these operations because they made “only obey the orders”. Commission also concluded that the security service of the GRC has “escaped with any control” in the Années 1970.

The federal government concludes that it “is not adapted” to continue the hundred directly implied agents. Moreover, there is regulation for certain crimes and the government declares that it is “unjust to continue certain agents and not others for a question of regulation”. One of the recommendations of the commission is implemented: the fight against subversion is withdrawn from the mandates of the GRC to be transferred to a civil agency, the Canadian Service of the information of safety (SCRS), created in 1983. New information makes surface occasionally, as in 1992 when one learns that the GRC also has, in the Années 1970 and 1980, bribed a member of the Lévesque cabinet to make an adviser of it, adding the Corruption of a Ministre to his list of crimes.

None of these facts, however very similar according to certain observers to those which were updated by the board of inquiry into the Watergate at the the United States, had political impact sensitive to the Canada.

See too

External bonds

the secret war against the independence of Quebec
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2005/02/GOURD/12124
http://www.ledevoir.com/cgi-bin/imprimer?path=/2002/05/04/195.html
http://www.republiquelibre.org/cousture/GRC.HTM
http://www.ameriquebec.net/2006/10/07-operations-illegales-de-la-grc-au-quebec-contre-des-souverainistes.html

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