A doctor in TMR claims that after a brief exchange with a police public security officer over a ticket, police officers came to his home, threw him to the floor and cuffed him, and shoved his wife, all in view of his two young daughters. The couple now face charges connected with resisting police.
I don’t love the police, but I can’t help wondering what’s been omitted from this story.
The Kahnawake Mohawks have responded to Ian Lafrenière with a statement: “Opinionated commentary that challenge and discredit our presence are not only insulting, they are taken as displaced attacks on our existence.”
Can someone help me? I’m trying to keep up with our spiraling world but can’t quit grasp some expressions… Seriously, I’m old, francophone and politics neither social sciences are my academic field, quantum physics… (joking).
“Identity politics”, “Cancel culture”, “Wokism”, what are they? Are they bad? Do they even exist? At least I know Jordan B Peterson decried “cultural marxism” doesn’t 🙂 Three words sentences please.
First, « cultural marxism » is dog whistle for antisemitism.
Second, it’s only cancel culture if it comes from the Cancèl region of France. Everything else is just sparkling consequences!
Identity politics et wokism, ben c’est l’opposé de « ça me concerne pas personnellement fait que je vois pas pourquoi la société dépense du temps et de l’argent avec ça” exemple depuis ce printemps on nous a demandé de mettre nos pronoms dans notre signature au travail, Ben depuis avril j’ai eu au moins 4 personnes qui m’ont écrit des mails très désagréables pcq mon employeur est devenu trop woke et c’est pour ça que le monde va mal (je travaille en prévention du suicide) . Mais j’ai aussi eu plusieurs personnes qui m’ont partage d’emblée être trans pcq elles se sentaient en sécurité. So I guess I’m woke now? Whatever…
Identity politics c’est aussi le MSSS qui met une page informative on Portugal dans le journal local pour inciter le monde à se faire vacciner, Ben oui on parle français au Québec, mais tenir compte des minorités qui parfois sont isolées et parlent pas bien le français ça coûte pas grand chose et ça aide.
Wokeisme c’est une collegue avoir un blâme immédiat pour “bon l’autre a**ardé a encore pas vide le lave-vaisselle” (on emploi une personne avec des troubles de développement pour faire du petit entretien au bureau) puis finalement se faire renvoyée pcq elle a répondu par “je peux l’appeler comme je veux, il comprend pas quand on parle de lui!” quand on lui a remarqué que le R Word c’est pas bien.
And finally, identity politics c’est quand on trouve ça aberrant que les rasoirs (surtout pour les personnes a barbe) sont taxés plus bas pcq produit essentiel, mais que les produits menstruelles sont taxés full pinne (c’est pas dans la liste des produits essentiels???)
In conclusion, le wokism c’est quand les trous duc subissent des conséquences pour leur attitude rétrograde.
Pcq oui “avant” ta secrétaire elle aimait déjà pas ça se faire mettre la main aux fesses… mais elle pouvait pas se plaindre…
“Identity politics” – people having a voice who were marginalized in past and present.
“Cancel culture” – accountability for those who would’ve gotten away with shit in the past.
“Wokeism” – it used to mean something until it got coopted by the status quo and by militants.
However, these terms have nothing to do with land acknowledgement, which is, at heart, a gesture to the First Nations demonstrating respect and mindfulness of our colonial history.
The CAQ is in the wrong here and showing appalling ignorance and disrespect – AND they started it. If anyone is contributing to this spiraling world, it’s them.
@Azrhey
Excellent mon chef! Je RIS
@Raymond
I might regret this but I’ll give it a stab. Disclaimer: I’m also old and white. Azrhey explains how these terms are used by people here in Quebec who are okay with the status quo and want to criticize progressive change, and Meezly’s summary is probably more condensed an explanation than you might like, so I’ll try to give more of a general idea where these terms originated on the left before being adopted by the right to attack the left. This is of course just my view and not intended to be a definitive account. Sorry it’s so long and covers things you undoubtedly already know but can’t connect to the English terminology (and also for the lack of three word sentences).
“Identity politics” is when people who share a common identity act together to attempt to cause political change that is relevant to people who share that identity. Since left organizations focused on class-based economic issues have historically been dominated by white, male, etc. individuals, people who didn’t share one or more of these identities often felt that these organizations didn’t address many of their concerns. Eventually, they began to form other political entities focused on those concerns particular to their identity. For example, say a white dominated reformist organization calls for a higher minimum wage. It applies to everyone, problem solved, right? The non-white organization’s response is that a higher minimum wage doesn’t help if you can only get informal work because there’s a bias against hiring non-whites that the white reformists don’t recognize. There’s a need to act against that bias as well. Identity politics of this sort is a real and positive thing. But nothing is ever quite so simple. Tensions arise within or between organizations over where limited resources are best directed or who gets to fill scarce leadership roles (in hierarchical organizations) and also between identities, such as is currently seen between some feminists and transgendered people. This led to the criticism that identity politics disrupts solidarity and has made left politics less effective. This gave identity politics a negative connotation. The right then seized on and amplified this negative view of identity politics to attract white, male, etc. people essentially by claiming that identity politics means being told what to do by non-whites and/or females and/or etc. So, yes it exists, no it’s not a bad thing but it also opens the door to certain attacks by the right, which is why you see them using the term. (Note that as a term, identity politics could just as easily apply to white supremacists or Hindu nationalists in India, but historically it has meant what Meezly has said).
“Cancel culture” is one of those right-wing terms that shows how unoriginal they can be. Essentially, they saw the left using “rape culture” and swapped in “cancel” for “rape”. There is a real left wing phenomenon here, for example, when anti-fascists call the attention of internet advertisers to the poorly concealed fascist content of certain websites, resulting in those websites losing their funding. It’s essentially an extension of boycotting. Generally, it’s a good thing when done carefully, but people can be quick to judge according to their pre-existing ideas rather than consider all the facts, and can end up targeting the wrong people. It’s easy enough for the right to attract people further rightward by exploiting concern that this might happen. “Cancel culture” is the term the right uses in its efforts to exploit this concern.
I’m on even shakier ground with “wokism” but I currently understand it thusly. “Woke” was a term applied by some people on the left to their own views, the idea being that they were “awake to” (that is, aware of) issues that other people, including (possibly, especially) on the left, were “asleep to”. As it became more commonly recognized, the right seized on it as a replacement for “politically correct”, which was getting a bit stale as an insult. The right grafted on the “ism” to make it sound more like an ideology.
I can’t quite agree with Arzhey that “cultural marxism” is simply a dog whistle for anti-semitism. I know people I was friends with as a teenager who have in the intervening years become quite right wing (via gun culture, I think) and quite happily parrot the term “cultural marxism” but who give zero sign of being anti-semitic (anti-Islam on the other hand…). Basically, it’s a popular term on the right because lots of people (right and center) still equate “left” with “Marxist” and “Marxist” with “Stalinist”. These people don’t particularly comprehend any of the more recent left ideas (other than to understand that they involve people who are different from them), so right wing commentators like Jordan P. label the more recent left ideas as “cultural marxism” to use such people’s reflexive anti-marxism to get them to reject these ideas before they try to understand them (and possibly see that they have some merit).
Merci à tous. En parlant aujourd’hui avec un ami de ce commentaire, il m’a rappelé que Natalie Wynn avait fait un excellent video (comme toujours) sur le cancelling, video que j’avais sauté, faute de temps. Il m’a expliqué que le cancelling est effectivement présent dans la communauté progressiste: disons que je croise un nazi et que je ne le punch pas ou que je l’invite sur ma plate-forme et que je ne le confronte pas avec une véhémence qui satisfait ma propre communauté: celle-ci alors pourrait décider de me mettre au ban, au même titre que le nazi lui-même… C’est une espèce de culpabilité par association, par amalgame.
As for Cultural Marxism, I found this from Bruce Wilson:”’Cultural Marxism’ is now the grand unifying narrative for the hard, fascist & neo-Nazi right. It does the same work as did the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ forgery did, a century ago, to inspire Hitler & his Nazis,”. Somber factoid: “Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, used the terms “cultural Marxism” or “cultural Marxist” more than 600 times in his 1,500-plus-page manifesto.” (Salon article).
nau and Meezly explainations of Identity politics do clarify things for me, thanks, and Azrhey m’a bien fait sourire. As for wokism, I didn’t think of looking at wikipedia… their section on it’s pejorative use is clear.
Nice discussion. I’m a little late to this thread, and haven’t yet found an hour 40 minutes to watch Raymond’s video, but would the 2002 Netanyahu riot at Concordia be considered an early example of cancel culture/deplatforming?
@Tim S. Why would you want to reduce the complicated history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict to cancel culture/deplatforming?
@Raymond Lutz, I’m glad the explanations were helpful, but why did you bring up these questions on the topic that was supposed to be about land acknowledgement?
The Kahnawake Mohawks responded to Lafrenière’s blatantly ignorant, knee-jerk reaction with a measured and articulate statement that had nothing to do with wokeism, cancel culture or identity politics.
The question that should be asked is why Quebec politicians keep defaulting to their colonial playbook and why they’re not interested in reaching out in any way towards truth and reconciliation.
Maybe we should all educate ourselves in how patriarchal colonialism and capitalism has shaped society today and how civil rights activists in the past century has helped inform our discussions today? I’m a little astounded that wokeism, cancel culture or identity politics can siderail discussions where people could potentially learn something.
@Tim, I tought Legault was doing “Identity politics” using the landback movement: cajoling its electoral base simply being “against”, but was not sure (and I thought it would be a good occasion to toss in all the other stuff I’m not familiar with).
There is land acknowledgement, which is what the Montreal Canadiens were simply doing, and there is the landback movement. Based on Lafrenière’s reactionary response, he seems to be conflating the two.
Acknowledging that we’re on unceded lands does not mean returning all stolen land to the Kanien’keha:ka. Why is there this unfounded fear that a simple land acknowledgement gesture is going to lead to a gateway call to action?
Legault has used ‘identity politics’ in his dealings with the federal government who seem more concerned with appeasing the francophone Quebec majority, at the expense of other minorities, because francophone Quebecers see themselves as a threatened minority. I really don’t think it would work that way with the Quebec gov’t’s relations with First Nations, as they see obviously through all their bullshit.
Taylor C. Noakes does a detailed analysis of Denis Coderre’s platform which starts with giggles but then gets down to business, and it’s worth reading.
I hope he’ll do a similar exercise on the Projet platform soon.
The Journal says police have consulted with Rizzuto associates in an appeal to calm things down among the gangs popping caps in Rivière‑des‑Prairies.
Edited at 5:30 pm to add: no comment on this? If the Journal isn’t blowing smoke, our cops are turning to crooks to keep an eye on other, presumably lesser crooks. (They’re also turning to white crooks to keep an eye on Black crooks, by and large.) In addition, it seems to me they just painted targets on the backs of Marco Pizzi and Davide Barberio, the two Rizzuto flankers shown in the piece.
Of course our cops and the crooks are in contact. I assume that they use the big crooks to rein in the anti-social behaviour of all the mini tough guys around town; it would be impossible for the cops to deal with them within the law. Also, the big crooks are professional organizations; they don’t want loose cannons blowing their deals so if the errand-boys get out of hand (or if they hear about it from the cops), they punish them themselves in a language they will understand. Ugly world, no doubt but order will be maintained by one side or the other.
I agree that it’s a very weird tactic for the police to turn to criminals to “police” their territories. But it might prove effective. Also, I don’t think this puts a target on those two mafiosi. It plays more like “we’ve got the cops in our pocket”.
I was thinking, though: if you ask these guys to work for you, you owe them. As I understand it, the boys work very strongly on a system of favours, i.e. if you ask the boys to do something for you, they might do it, but then you’re in their debt and when they come back and ask you for a favour in return, it might not be something you’re too happy about doing, but you kind of have to.
So what do the police offer Pizzi and Barberio in return?
Storefronts in downtown malls connected to the underground city are being hit hard by the pandemic, especially small businesses that used to benefit from the sheer numbers passing through corridors daily.
The Globe & Mail has a piece (linked here from the Web Archive, here is the media link) in which Ian Lafrenière, everyone’s favourite police spokesman turned very pale minister for indigenous affairs in the Legault government, says the Canadiens’ land acknowledgement statement “may be a mistake”: he dredges up the red herring argument that Montreal may not technically belong to the Mohawk people, so mentioning them is unwise.
Some people seem determined to pin this whole thing down to which first nation “owned” Montreal before Champlain, when it’s the wrong question. No, North America did not have European-style land titles before Europeans came, isn’t that a surprise, but it does not mean the land was terra nullius, free for the taking.
In any case, the wording is fine, thanking the “Kanien’keha:ka, also known as the Mohawk Nation, for their hospitality on this traditional and unceded territory where we are gathered today.” Nothing is said about ownership.
But Lafrenière has never been known for his subtlety of thought.
Right-wing nationalists are obsessed with proving that the Indigenous people who exist today are definitely not the same as the people who were here when Jacques Cartier arrived, because those people magically disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving the entire St. Lawrence valley empty and ready to be claimed by the French.
These types seem to harbour a particular hatred for the Mohawks. Maybe it’s because they were historically associated with the British? Or maybe it’s because of the Oka crisis. Either way, it’s a particularly nasty kind of denialism.
Classic consnerdative tactics here. “This single element is not 100% accurate therefore the entire premise is false.” Precisely why with fascists the only solution is to punch them.
Anishnabé (aka Algonquin) and St. Lawrence Iroquians (now extinct) were the usual occupants of the space that is now Montréal. The Mohawks were welcomed into Québec by Jesuits as refugees or converts in the Modern Era (post 1600s).
I find it sad that even land acknowledgements here are unresearched and, thus, empty tokenism. It’s like the elite here don’t even care about “getting it right,” as long as it sounds good to voters or customers.
**Anichinabé**
qatzelok, does it matter? This whole continent “belonged” to a group of cultures who were living on it at the time and the acknowledgment simply gives a nod to that. The land was not ceded by any of them, the Europeans just sashayed in and claimed it, and now we’re finally admitting it. That’s all it is. Splitting hairs misses the point.
Why does the government care what a private organisation (le CH) acknowledges?
Ian Lafrenière is no friend of the indigenous people. He’s like Human Resources for the government – HR is not there to be your friend, it’s there to protect the company.
Well put, steph.
Also, qatzelok, Anishnaabe doesn’t refer to the Algonquin but rather a large group of nations who belong to the Algonquian language group. It’s most commonly used to refer to Ojibwe (Chippewa in the US) but includes peoples from most regions around the Great Lakes.
I would argue that getting it right does matter precisely because we might one day take these claims seriously.
Tim S., as I understand it, it isn’t clear who, if anyone, had a persistent claim to the island of Montreal before the French showed up. Again, your idea that there’s any meaning to “getting it right” presupposes a European framework of land ownership. I’m not claiming that the first nations were noble savages, and they may have fought over access to good land or fishing spots or anything else, who knows. But indigenous people used the river for transport, which means the archipelago would have been known and occupied, even if not permanently and not all the time, by more than one nation.
Kate: exactly. And badly phrased land acknowledgements (I have no opinion about the Bell Centre one) just impose our European notions, fixed at an single point in time.
The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake called it for what it was, a pathetic attempt to politicize a genuine reconciliatory action. When the CAQ aims low, they aim high.
The National Post has a piece about a billionaire from Montreal who’s been doing business in Hong Kong for ages and is a booster for the Beijing government’s crackdown on the zone. It’s clear that this can be summed up as “rich guy wants order imposed so he can make more money.”
Oh. Allan Zeman. Fun fact: back in the 1980s, he bought up a bunch of properties in Lan Kwai Fong, a back alley near Hong Kong’s main financial district, with the intention of creating something similar to Crescent Street in Montreal.
His opinions reflect those of the Hong Kong establishment, whose fortunes are so tied up in mainland China that they couldn’t possibly say anything critical of the CCP. Incidentally, Zeman renounced his Canadian citizenship and became a Chinese citizen in the hopes of earning a spot on the HK government’s Executive Council, but his nomination was quashed by Beijing because a foreigner will always be a foreigner and can never really be trusted, no matter how much toadying he does.
That’s quite a story. There’s a tragic movie waiting to be made about him someday.
La Presse runs down the list of election issues in the east end, from the REM de l’est to Ray‑Mont Logistics and beyond.
The Journal has some grim details of the fatal stabbing of Romane Bonnier on Aylmer Street near McGill on Tuesday. “She had to die!” the attacker is reported to have said.
François Pelletier was scooped up by police, and witnesses were offered support. Pelletier was charged with murder in the first degree Wednesday.
The Journal also notes that this is the 17th conjugal killing of a woman in Quebec this year. Patrick Lagacé ponders a lost life, and how it’s impossible to know who among us is a potential killer.
Interesting side note: according to reports I’ve heard he was her former roommate, not a romantic partner. But because they lived under the same roof, it’s considered “conjugal.”
Blork, you know how relationships can get into gray areas nobody really understands, even the people in them. The man may have thought it was a relationship, and that he had some claim on her, while the woman didn’t.
True, but my point is that the spokesperson I heard on the radio last night specifically said that a romantic relationship is not required for such a crime to be considered “conjugal,” or at least to be labelled that way.
I’m not judging, I’m just pointing out an interesting fact about how crimes are labelled and perceived, at least here in Quebec. So even if, for example, two straight dude roomates who have never expressed the remotest sexual or romantic interest in each other got into a fight and one injured or killed the other, it would be considered “conjugal.” At least to Francophone authorities.
(Dictionary definitions of “conjugal” in English certainly focus on the “spousal” aspect. Is it possible the meaning is different in French? Or maybe it only applies in this specific case because, as you say, the “spouse” aspect was there on one side, if only in the person’s head.)
Blork, is that possible? If two guys share an apartment, platonically, and one kills the other, it’s classified as conjugal violence?!
The root of “conjugal” is Latin: from Middle French conjugal, from Latin coniugālis (“con- + iugum (‘yoke’)”). Of or relating to marriage, or the relationship of spouses; connubial. Wiktionary.
I don’t see how this can stretch to roommates. Maybe “domestic” would apply, since a killing could be done in a home setting where both people lived, even if not partners.
I’m re-thinking my whole thread here. I was basing it on the official on the news (I don’t know who she was; some police spokesperson) saying that a romantic involvement is not necessary in this case to consider it “conjugal.” From that I extrapolated to the points I made above. But now I’m thinking that what you said might be more in line, and the spokesperson might have been hinting at the fact that it was a one-sided “romance” (i.e., unrequited), or in a more general sense that the term could apply to a “room mates with benefits” type situation, or maybe “still living with an ex- but no longer involved” or whatnot.
BTW, I like that “yoke” is part of the root of the word. 🙂
BTW, the JdeM story has a lot more (gruesome) detail, and it flat-out says that they had at one point been in a romantic relationship. So I guess the takeaway is that “conjugal” applies even in the case of exes. And with that I’d like to end this part of the discussion because it is by far not the most important aspect of this terrible crime.
Sue Montgomery says that, if re-elected, she’d campaign to split Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce into separate boroughs. She has good arguments, which have been mentioned here on the blog and elsewhere: CDN-NDG is an unwieldy size at 21km2 with 175,000 residents, compared to adjoining Outremont at 4km2 with 20,000. And, as she also says, Côte-des-Neiges and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce have different demographics and therefore different needs.
I am firmly in the opposite camp. Our population isn’t large enough, the talent pool isn’t large enough, for 19 boroughs and 100+ councillors, let alone to put forward enough quality candidates.
Although I don’t think anyone in Montreal has come forward and said anything quite so magnificent as the Republican candidate for NYC Council district 4
https://youtu.be/l_u5IBxJbrw?t=162
Being very east of the mountain-centric for years, when I finally ventured over to the other side, I was appalled by the geographical reality of CDN-NDG. Look at the map. It makes zero sense that they should be the same borough. They only have one teeny corner that is contiguous. I’m pretty ignorant about city planning and municipal politics, so there may be other valid reasons for making them a single borough,but at least as far as maps go, I am fully for separating them.
Completely disagree with Kevin – we need more representation, not less. The biggest boroughs have populations equal to medium sized cities elsewhere in the country (or in the case of CDN-NDG, roughly equivalent to the population of PEI). Pierrefonds-Roxboro has less than half the population but only two fewer councillors. I say divide it all up by chunks of 40,000 people.
I think they should eliminate the borough/city councillor distinction too.
You wanna live in a big city? Pay for the big government needed to manage it.
That said, I’m not keen on Montgomery’s ‘our demographics are different’ argument as good enough justification. And I honestly don’t think they are *that* different either, despite what real estate agents might say.
A CROP poll commissioned by Radio-Canada finds that Valérie Plante and Denis Coderre are neck and neck in voter intentions, with 27% still undecided and few considering other candidates.
walkerp 07:20 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
I didn’t wonder before checking the link and now seeing that he has a middle eastern name, I don’t wonder at all. I’m sure one of the cops felt “dissed” and brought his little gang to teach the immigrant a lesson in respect. They are a gang with the authority of the state behind them. Just disgusting and actually quite frightening.
GC 08:19 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
Three cars for a parking violation does sound like a gang. Also, Kate, was the initial exchange with a police officer? The radio this morning said “security” and the linked article says “TMR public security officer”. I actually don’t know what the latter is, but I’m guessing it’s different from a police officer. I’d be interested in hearing from that officer and if he was even truly threatened.
dhomas 08:33 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
TMR Public Security are NOT police officers. They are basically a neighbourhood watch on steroids that is sanctioned by the city and has a direct line to the police. In my experience, they are
wannabe cops on a power trip.
https://www.ville.mont-royal.qc.ca/en/services-residents/safety-and-security/public-security-services
walkerp 08:35 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
Yep and sounds like he has some actual buddies on the force. TMR administration needs to go after this guy. Can’t do anything about the real police of course, but at least this guy can get a wrist slap, maybe lose his job.
Tim S. 08:35 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
We only have one side of the story, and it’s from a guy who admits to illegally parking outside a school and refusing to move when ordered to. Having seen some of the crazy stuff that goes on near my kids’ schools, I take this seriously.
I don’t know about TMR, but in Westmount the PSOs – who deal with parking and so on – are very big on de-escalation, being unarmed and all. If you get into an argument with them, it’s because you’re being a jerk. Maybe TMR is different, as per dhomas.
So yeah, we know all about the SPVM, but I need more before throwing stones.
Also, what’s up with people believing that you can park wherever you want if you have your flashers on?
walkerp 09:06 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
Even if he was totally in the wrong and belligerent about not moving his car, there is zero justification for entering his home and physically and psychologically assaulting his family members.
Meezly 09:08 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
The issue isn’t about whether the doctor was in the wrong or not (he was), but the excessive use of force by police by barging into his home and physically assaulting him and his wife in front of their children… for an infraction.
I think if you refuse to move a car after being ticketed, you can be fined further, or get demerits, but not having 3 police cars show up, throw you down on the floor and cuff you.
steph 09:17 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
Towing was not an option?
Meezly 09:20 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
He was picking up his kid from school. Would’ve been gone by the time the tow truck came.
qatzelok 10:33 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
People who drive right up to schools and park wherever they want… really don’t show any concern for anyone else. This kind of daily car shuffle puts children’s lives at risk.
Uatu 10:35 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
If anything the public security officers behavior opens up TMR security to get sued into the stone age
dhomas 11:46 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
Granted, my experience with TMR Public Security was from the 90’s when I had some friends from high school who lived there. Things may have changed since then.
I have more recent experience with Westmount public security (late 2000’s early 2010’s). I was visiting my cousin who lives there and driving a 90’s model Toyota Tercel. Public security stopped me to ask what business I had in the area. I’m quite certain they stopped me because I was driving a “poor person’s car”, which did not fit in with all the Jaguars, Porsches, and whatnot more common to the area.
Blork 12:13 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
OTOH, I lived briefly in Westmount (1999-2000), and at the time I had a Jetta that was so beat up it likely devalued the surrounding property values just by being seen parked in the street. One night I accidentally parked in a no-parking zone (it was temporarily no parking because of some planned sidewalk repairs, but the sign was badly indicated). So around 9:00PM I get a phone call from Westmount Public Security telling me that I was parked in a spot marked for road work and would I please come move it so they wouldn’t have to give me a ticket. #thegoodolddays
Tee Owe 13:22 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
I had a similar experience to Blork, in 1996, got a parking ticket outside my newly-rented apartment, complained, was invited to discuss, got a patient explanation of parking rules in Westmount and then the ticket was torn up. Welcome to Westmount!
BTW I totally agree with Meezly, no matter how rude or offensive somebody was about a parking infraction, a home invasion and arrest in front of family is totally inappropriate.
John B 14:33 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
Well, the article says he’s charged with threatening a public safety officer which probably means there was an arrest warrant, which would be why the officers entered the home.
They probably could have arrested him more gently, but, to give them the benefit of the doubt, who knows what they had been told about his earlier behaviour or the nature of the “threats.”
If the doctor is telling the truth, then either the public safety officer lied to the police, (which is a crime), or someone in the police force decided to way overstep their bounds.
On the other hand if the doctor said something like “go ahead, call a tow truck & I’ll have your job” or “& you’ll pay” that’s a threat, and if all the police had to go on was “a man residing at X address threatened a public safety officer” I can see how they would go in with force, even if a more modern, compassionate, method might be to try a softer approach.
Tim S. 14:57 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
I’m really struggling to understand what the PSO, an unarmed public security officer, is supposed to have done wrong. He asked an illegally parked vehicle to move, the driver, by his own account, refused, and so the PSO filed a report which was escalated to the actual SPVM.
If we want less violent policing, it means having more people like the PSOs, but they also need to be protected and supported, hence the police intervention.
GC 15:25 on 2021-10-22 Permalink
If he said “I’ll have your job”, is that really a threat? It makes the doctor an asshole, for sure, but it seems like a pretty empty threat if one at all. A threat of violence would be a very different thing.
And _was_ there an actual arrest warrant? The doctor says he asked and the cops did not produce any warrant. Could the doctor be lying? Sure. Is it possible they had one but wouldn’t show him because he was being abusive or something? Sure. If Razaghi is telling the truth, though, a bunch of cops did show up like a gang just because they didn’t like what someone said to one of their buddies. Would be interesting to hear the police side of this story, but I guess we won’t get that until the trial.