It was 1:30 a.m. on May 4 when Michael Fortier realized why a neighbor was spanking the gutter of his house to wake him up: his driveway was on fire.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Or rather, one of his cars was on fire.
Then two cars.
The flames rose high, very high in the air. A witness filmed the scene, from another angle, a real blaze. “I will never forget that scene, said Michael Fortier, in an interview with The Press. I never want to see that again. »
Michael Fortier’s wife and their three children evacuated the house from the back. The firefighters arrived, then the police. Fortier, a vice-president of the Royal Bank, also a former Conservative minister, was in shock.
“It was playing in my head. Even if the firefighters told me that they did not see any traces of accelerant, even if they told me that it was perhaps a defect that had caused the fire, I had my doubts…”
Looking at the footage filmed by a witness, it is not difficult to imagine that the car fire could easily have spread to the house, where five people were sleeping.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Michael Fortier, in 2018
It was a short night and the banker, VP of RBC Capital Markets, went to work that morning completely unable to think of anything but the fire. Then, around 7:30 a.m., one of his sons called him. His first words: “Dad, I have bad news…”
Michael Fortier’s son had finally found the password to the videotapes of the surveillance cameras in the house, a password which Michael Fortier had forgotten. His son had just viewed the images preceding the fire.
“Two guys, on bikes, stop, describes Michael Fortier. Like nothing ever happened. Then they pull something out and throw it at the car that was in the middle of the driveway. This one caught fire and caused the fire of the one which was near the street…”
Michael Fortier tells me about the scene, he is still shaken.
“At that moment, he told me, I was in the dark. Why did they do this? Is there a blind spot in my life? In that of a member of my family? Did someone get the wrong target? I don’t know that world…
“That world?”
‘When you read that in the newspaper, that a car burned down, you think of organized crime, the target is described as being “known to the police”. I’m not from that world…”
All day, Wednesday, Michael Fortier thought only of that, of this fire, of these images of the arsonists, which he only viewed once, “because I am not able to look again”, asking yourself: why?
The answer came on Thursday, May 5.
The “Montréal contre-information” site, which describes itself as a site of “anarchist and anti-authoritarian news and analysis”, published a text entitled “Night visit to a senior RBC leader”, which claimed responsibility for the fire, because the Royal Bank finances a pipeline in British Columbia, Coastal GasLink.
It was about Michael Fortier’s “luxurious Mont-Royal home”, the RBC financing of this pipeline, with these words: “As the glaciers melt, drought, fire and famine spread, M Fortier may think his money and contacts will spare him, his children, and his grandchildren. But the enraged will know the names of the great leaders…”
Michael Fortier shakes his head, it’s clear that these people don’t know me, he says: “I’m based in Montreal, I’ve almost never had clients in the hydrocarbons. On the contrary, several of my clients are in renewable energies. And even if I was in hydrocarbons, it would obviously remain unjustifiable to do this to me…”
And, says Michael Fortier, “they don’t know that I have repeatedly criticized my own political family, the Conservatives, on our approach to climate change”. For him, it is clear, he was targeted because he is an employee of the Royal, “guilty”, in a way, by association.
The RBC has been targeted by vandals for some time: for example, branches were vandalized and the house of another senior RBC official in Montreal was smeared with graffiti in April.
Let’s press pause here.
I know that some of the most convinced climate activists will say that what Michael Fortier went through is not as bad as what awaits the planet in this era of climate change. I argue that it’s relativism and it’s a slippery slope to trivialize this kind of gesture, because the logic of guilt by association is a little game from which no one ever emerges unscathed.
Nobody is completely pure – neither the rich nor the poor, nor the bank bosses, nor those who buy vehicles, as well as cyclists whose tires are made with petroleum derivatives…
At this little game, who deserves to have his property burned?
Who deserves to be bullied?
Who deserves to bear the brunt of violent means to defend an honorable end, that of the environment?
In this game, we are all a “legitimate” target for someone with a particular ideological pattern.
In this game, the arsonists of Fortier, if they are one day arrested and identified, could certainly be designated as legitimate targets for certain enthusiasts.
It’s the kind of game that ends with corpses tied up in “tank cases”…
We are all someone’s “impure”.
Michael Fortier experienced the harshness of the political game when he was Stephen Harper’s minister. He exposes himself to criticism when he publishes his comments in The Press and in other media.
He has nothing against environmentalists, quite the contrary: “If you want to advance your ideas in our free and democratic society, it is not by intimidating citizens who do not share your opinions, or whom you think they don’t share your opinions. The diversity of opinions has often made me change my opinion, precisely. But burning my cars is not a discussion, it’s an act of intimidation. »
Which royally insults him, knowing how much he has always been involved in a thousand and one charitable activities of all kinds. Another irony, he notes: the arsonists wrote that they had targeted “the engine block of his Jaguar”… electric.
“In the press release, I am never reproached for being of this opinion that we must develop hydrocarbons, no: they say that I am an oppressor of the poor and the oppressed because I live in Mount Royal! »
To summarize: in recent months, hooligans have vandalized Royal Bank branches, the home of a Royal Bank executive has been defiled and, last week, the vehicles of another RBC executive were set on fire. …
I ask Michael Fortier what that announces, in his opinion.
Answer: “It’s an escalation. It announces that they could, one day, do worse. And “worse” will not advance their cause. On the contrary… ”