Malfeasance in Montebello

Last week at Montebello, near Ottawa in Quebec, the leaders of North America met for a '3 Amigos' summit. There were, of course, organized protests and massive amounts of counter-security. The democratically elected leaders were being protected from the demos who, theoretically at least, elected them. Check out this U-Tube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ehubbers%2Eca%2F

These were SQ (Surete du Quebec) officers, in other words, they were cops. Or maybe they were RCMP.

I think there are legitimate arguments to be made for why cops should be undercover in a large demonstration. The best one for me is that there is always a small minority of any large group, especially at protests and demonstrations, who are unstable. These people pose a danger to themselves, to other people in the group and to the respectability of the group as a whole. I fully respect the right of the police to gather intelligence on these people and monitor the situation.

Unfortunately, at this demonstration, that small, unstable minority were the police. As I watched the video I was filled with admiration for the union leader, Dave Coles , who interceded on behalf of the peaceful protesters and forced the 'anarchists' back behind police lines. I seriously doubt whether I would have had even a small portion of that man's courage - those cops were scary and big. The crowd laughed as the 'rioters' were thrown to the ground by police, ripped, and marched away.

Here is a CBC article that covers a little bit more and actually manages to mention *why* the protestors and national leaders were in Montebello in the first place: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/08/22/ot-police-070822.html.

"The Security and Prosperity Partnership pact, signed in 2005, is intended to forge closer trade and security links between the countries."

Many people, and I am certainly one of them, feel that the SPP is the single largest threat to Canada's sovereignty and continued existence as an independent nation. While some might argue that our nationhood is merely a technicality at this point, I like to believe that we still have the ability to make our own decisions, especially on the international stage. That while we must always be mindful of our ginormously powerful neighbour to the south (yes, ginormous is the technical term) that we still have the potential to be a strong mid-power nation. The SPP threatens to rip that all away.

I encourage you to take a gander at Glenn's site: http://hubbers.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/threats-to-our-water.pdf for more information and links on SPP. Then maybe write a letter.