From the Council of Canadians :
"The Municipality of Papineauville, which is about six kilometres from Montebello, has informed the Council of Canadians that the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the U.S. Army will not allow the municipality to rent the Centre Communautaire de Papineauville for a public forum on Sunday August 19, on the eve of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership Leaders Summit.
The Council of Canadians has been told that the RCMP and the SQ will be enforcing a 25-kilometre security perimeter around the Chateau Montebello, where Stephen Harper will meet with George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón on August 20 and 21."
The US Army will not allow the municipality...?
A 25K security perimeter? WTF?
From the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms :
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
a) freedom of conscience and religion;
b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
d) freedom of association.
No mention in there anywhere of these rights being subject to the whims of the US Army.
Note that Papineauville evidently didn't feel the authority of the RCMP was sufficient unto itself here.
Or have we officially given up bothering to distinguish between the policies of the RCMP and those of the US Army?
UPDATE : From Thursday's Ottawa Citizen :
"Mr. Patterson [of Council of Canada] said Frederic Castonguay, the town's general manager, reported that Guy Cote, of the Quebec police force in Montreal, had told him the council "is an activist organization opposed to the summit and that it would not be wise to have us set up in the community centre."
Mr. Castonguay yesterday confirmed he had been called by Mr. Cote, who told him that the police and U.S. army need the community centre as a base of operations for summit security."
6 comments:
I had no idea SPP was in this stage already: Quebec is already "integrated"?
Front page of the Ottawa Citizen today:
Police nix meeting near world leaders
(always nice to scoop the Citizen :)
Their story now is that they "need the room there to put equipment and special vehicles". Yeah. In a community centre. And they suddenly decided this five weeks before the Summit.
Nice of them to give the event such a high profile in the media, though - otherwise it might just have slipped by unnoticed again.
What's interesting is that a lot of Canadian blogs have suddenly just discovered SPP today and are spreading the word, including one that formerly referred to deep integration a conspiracy theory.
So now the U.S. Army is occupying Quebec? Don't they have enough to do blowing up Canadians in Afghanistan? Maybe we should fight them over there so we don't have to fight them at home...
anyone have any other links on this, aside from the Citizen and the CofC?
Rev : Not that I've been able to find. All other stories - Macleans, the other dailies - all appear to just be rewrites.
I assume what you're looking for is a corroboration of Brent Patterson's statement regarding Castonguay's quoting of Guy Cote.
Seems like that was a private conversation.
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