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Terrorism and Imperialism: The FLQ

This is the fifth article in Modern Communism’s series on the relationship between imperialism and terrorism.

Most Canadians are at least generally familiar with the FLQ (Front du liberation du Quebec) and the events of the 1970 October Crisis. According to official mythology, this radical group of ultraleftist Quebec nationalists (sometimes also described in textbooks as a communist or Marxist-Leninist group) was committed to the use of terror to achieve an independent, socialist Quebec. The kidnapping of British Trade Commissioner James Cross and the kidnapping and murder of Quebec Labour MinisterPierre LaPorte are the two most famous acts of terrorism the FLQ is associated with, although there were also a few bombings and plots to blow-up prominent American targets located in Quebec.

The FLQ emerged onto the Quebec and Canadian political scene in the 1960s, when the revolutionary youth and student movement was in flow. Thousands of young Canadians and Quebecois were joining the revolutionary movement. In his book on the genocide in Rwanda, retired Lt-General Romeo Dallaire describes his early involvement with the Canadian armed forces during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was a time, he said, when revolution in Quebec and Canada not only seemed possible, but probable.

Within this context, the FLQ began to organize in Quebec. From the beginning, the FLQ was covered prominently by the Quebecois and Canadian bourgeois media. Different FLQ members were promoted extensively as the true representatives of the Quebecois revolutionary movement and the group’s literature was even put on required reading lists for some university courses. This was despite the fact that the group never had widespread popular support. Indeed, the FLQ’s activities discredited the revolutionary movement to the point where the movement’s effectiveness was weakened, particularly in Quebec.

As was the case with the Red Brigades in Italy, the existence of the FLQ provided all the justification the Canadian state needed to launch an all-out offensive against the revolutionary movement. This offensive began even before the Trudeau government invoked the War Measures Act during the October Crisis. Under the draconian provisions of the Act, however, (similar to the provisions of anti-terrorism legislation passed by the Chretien government in November 2001), Trudeau authorized the RCMP to take extraordinary actions against revolutionary activists. Rule of law was suspended, the armed forces were deployed and thousands of youth and student activists, not just in Quebec, but across Canada, were arrested and held without charges for weeks and months. Hundreds of members of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) were arrested during this time.

Trudeau’s mantra during this period is one that echoes eerily today: trampling the civil liberties of all Canadians was necessary to protect the country from the scourge of terrorism. The FLQ, Trudeau argued, posed a direct threat to Canada’s national security and territorial integrity.

A subsequent investigation about the abuse of police power during the 1960s and 1970s, the MacDonald Commission of Inquiry into Certain Acts of the RCMP, revealed that the FLQ was, from its inception, completely infiltrated by police agents. The Commission’s report, released in 1981 with the exception of one volume which has never been released for “national security” reasons, found police agents were responsible for planning and sometimes carrying out terrorist activities within the FLQ. The portion of the Commission’s report that was published detailed how the RCMP used paid agents within the FLQ (and other Canadian and Quebecois groups) to spy on and discredit the revolutionary youth and student movement. The Commission detailed 11 different types of activities carried out by RCMP agents that violated Canadian law. These included:

· RCMP agents turned over information that was used to compile files on tens of thousands of Canadians. These files were shared with police agencies in other countries, including the United States, India, Pakistan, Israel, Lebannon, Iran, Britain and Ireland.

· RCMP agents stole membership lists from the Parti Quebecois and used these lists to recruit members for the FLQ and other groups that were heavily infiltrated.

· RCMP agents burned a barn in Quebec as part of a “training session” for terrorist activities.

· RCMP agents acquired weapons, explosives and cash for members of the FLQ. RCMP agents also provided training in the use of these weapons and explosives.

The MacDonald commission, however, concluded from its investigation that the problem was a lack of civilian control of the RCMP – one of its main recommendations was for the creation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Despite evidence to the contrary, the Commission also suggested the activities of the RCMP were carried out without the knowledge of senior members of the Trudeau government.

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