June 5, 2012

Emergency Law Broadens Canada’s Sympathy for Quebec Protests

By IAN AUSTEN

MONTREAL — Until recently, the daily student protests that have clogged the streets of Montreal since late February did little to win public support for their cause.

But when the provincial government of Quebec tried to end the demonstrations by arresting more than 2,500 people and passing an emergency law that some Canadian lawyers consider heavy-handed and perhaps unconstitutional, it helped turn what had been a narrowly focused student strike against increases in college and university costs into a battle over a broader set of grievances that has introduced some of the greatest political turmoil Canada has seen in decades.

“We are not anymore into a tuition hike discussion,” said Carole Beaulieu, the editor of L’Actualité, a current affairs magazine that has urged the students to end the walkout. “Something else is at play, something hard to grasp. We are into a left-versus-right debate, an old-versus-young debate.”

Canada’s Constitution makes “peace, order and good government” a guiding principle, and Canadians are widely known for valuing civility and calm. But several civil rights activists and others say that the conflict has pushed the government too far toward a policy of maintaining order at the expense of free speech, which is also constitutionally protected. Among other things, the new law, adopted in mid-May, requires police permission for marches and allows for fines of up to $125,000 for student groups that violate its rules.

“It’s not difficult to create a feeling that ‘Enough is enough’ and that ‘This must be crushed,’ ” said Nathalie Des Rosiers, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which is among the groups challenging Quebec’s emergency law in court. “The idea of passing special statutes to limit protest assumes that they are inherently dangerous. Freedom to dissent is being undermined.”

For a city where traffic is notoriously congested at the best of times, the nightly marches were unquestionably disruptive and occasionally violent. And everyone agrees that only a minority of the province’s students joined the strike, even if the exact numbers are unclear.

The collapse of negotiations between the provincial government and the protesters late last week has led to fears that further turmoil could scare visitors away from Montreal, and Quebec in general, just as a series of summer festivals and events are about to get under way.

Indeed on Sunday, the organizers of the first of those events, the Grand Prix of Canada Formula 1 auto race, canceled a free open house scheduled for Thursday at their downtown race circuit, citing the potential for disruption. An annual comedy festival reported that advance ticket sales are down by about half.

But in an interview on Friday, Jean Charest, the premier of Quebec’s Liberal government, played down fears that the province faced a summer of upheaval. “I think the summer should be relatively calm; I don’t see why it would be otherwise,” he said. “We are going be very vigilant to make sure that if there are protests they will go off peacefully.”

Others disagreed. Jean-François Lisée, an author, academic, blogger and former adviser to two governments led by the separatist Parti Québécois, said that the disruptions are not likely to fade just because the school year is ending.

“He’s on another planet,” Mr. Lisée said. “Everything he does has the opposite effect of calming the situation.”

Mr. Charest acknowledged that the political challenge from the students is not over.

The leadership of the most radical student group, which is known as La Classe, has said that the tuition question “would not be resolved in the ballot box,” Mr. Charest said. “It will be resolved in the streets, that’s their position.”

Even critics like Mr. Lisée agree that a majority of Quebecers support the tuition increase. But the public reaction to the anti-protest legislation is decidedly mixed.

Anger over its provisions swiftly added a new group of demonstrators of all ages to the marches. The protesters, called themselves “casseroles,” adopting a technique pioneered in Chile in banging spoons on pots and pans as they marched through Montreal’s streets.

Before the strike, many Quebec voters appeared to be disenchanted with both Mr. Charest, who has been premier for nine years and who reluctantly opened an inquiry last month into government corruption, and the Parti Québécois, which was founded to separate Quebec from the rest of Canada. The Conservative Party, which dominates the national government, does not have a presence in the province, and its federal candidates have only a limited following in Quebec.

Outside of Quebec, Canada is also embroiled in other disputes. But political scientists said the situations were different. The federal Conservatives have increased anticrime measures and are targeting environmental groups opposed to oil-sands development because such measures resonate with the party’s core membership, analysts said.

Despite their sweeping new powers, Ms. Beaulieu and others say that the Montreal police have generally avoided the civil rights abuses witnessed in Toronto during the Group of 20 summit meeting in 2010. A police review agency in neighboring Ontario issued a scathing report last month condemning police conduct against protesters during the summit meeting as illegal, ineffective and unjustified.

Just after the emergency legislation was passed, however, the Montreal police arrested 518 demonstrators on a single night. Many of the arrested were surrounded by the police, who had told them to disperse without offering them an escape route. That technique, known as kettling, was strongly criticized by the investigation into Toronto’s police action.

The most violent clashes, however, took place earlier during a Liberal Party meeting outside of Montreal between protesters and the provincial police.

Ms. Des Rosiers, who said she believed that the emergency law was unnecessary, argued that a provision imposing penalties on people who encourage others to participate in marches and one requiring protesters to submit the routes of marches to police approval eight hours in advance are both unconstitutional.

Mr. Charest rejected those objections.

“Any comparison of the legislation with what is done elsewhere demonstrates that it’s quite reasonable and standard practice,” he said.

Ms. Des Rosiers said that the general desire for order has contributed to what she considered an erosion of free speech. But the atmosphere in Quebec, she said, may be about to change.

“For the most part you had an apathetic population,” she said. “Now you have a social movement.”