1970 October Crisis Analysis

Armed radicalists in the streets of Quebec, Nation wide panic, an insurmountable evil. The imagery of the 1970 October Crisis is clear. Perhaps almost excessively so. The crisis, beginning on October 5th 1970 stretching over a period of three months, would go on to become a landmark example of the state of french Canada, as well as the most hotly debated topic in Canadian legal history. The ordeal began when members of a radical separatist group, the Front de libération du Québec, or FLQ, kidnapped James Cross, a British consul in order to gain political notoriety and the attention of the Canadian population . The FLQ had the intention of making various demands (The reading of their manifesto on national television, safe passage to Cuba to

To answer this, one must address the severity of the crisis, as well as the degree to which the War Measures Act would alleviate the situation. This proves to be an unexpectedly difficult task, as it is impossible to accurately capture the zeitgeist of such a turbulent time period without being subject to bias. However from a purely objective standpoint, the evidence clearly identifies that there was no insurrection, nor was one likely to take place. Trudeau relied heavily on galvanizing the risk that the FLQ posed to the Canadian public. However, this came to be a detriment to his case when the supposed danger was discredited. According to most authorities, the FLQ “was a collection of scattered, radical grouplets who communicated amongst themselves with great difficulty and apprehension”(Conrad et al). It is of course, rather difficult to carry out widespread insurrection without a cohesive unit to do so. Trudeau’s speech relied heavily on the notion that the FLQ posed a greater threat than they realistically did, and by the end of the crisis it was clear that his claims were null. However, Trudeau did not operate alone in his endeavors. The crisis was rapidly escalated in scale by local and national media alike. The media “Fed the notion of a hydra head conspiracy, unknown, unknowable, but of course infinitely dangerous”, an error that almost did more to aid in the FLQ’s influence over the country, than it did to call in any sort of justifiable action (Bothwell, 447-50). This combined with rumors of Quebec dissolving their government due to the “severity” of the situation, a rumor that was initially reported to be started by Trudeau (although it was enforced by numerous parties”) in order to gain the support of the public for the actions he was preparing to take (Clement). It is generally agreed upon that War