At 8:20 a.m. on October 5, 1970, British diplomat James Richard Cross was kidnapped from his residence at 1297 Redpath-Crescent Street.
That morning, we learned on the radio that men disguised as delivery men showed up at the diplomat’s house and kidnapped him at the point of a machine gun before disappearing into the streets of Montreal.
The police are on alert. This is the beginning of the October crisis.
The opulent residence where James Richard Cross lived, at 1297, rue Redpath-Crescent, in the Golden Square Mile, in Montreal.
Jacques Bourdon
A troubled period in Canadian political history
During the 1960s, Quebec was shaken by the appearance of terrorist groups, such as the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ). Its members believe that the only possible future for the only majority French-speaking Canadian province in the country is independence.
Between 1963 and 1970, the leaders of the FLQ set up an entire clandestine network which had the capacity to take impactful actions. The FLQ mainly attacks Anglo-Saxon symbols. The group claims responsibility for more than 200 bombings and numerous thefts. He also blew up part of the residence of the mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau. These acts, which killed several citizens, were of a violence then unknown in Quebec.
In 1970, Quebec prisons were filled with more and more members of the FLQ.
Between 1963 and 1970, the Felquists carried out dozens of robberies and committed more than 200 bomb attacks, killing six people.
Jacques Bourdon
The Liberation cell
In the fall of 1969, the Montreal Felquist movement split into two distinct gangs. A first group, led by Paul Rose, took the name Chénier cell while a second, led by Jacques Lanctôt, took the name Libération cell. In this cell, we also find Jacques Lanctôt’s sisters, Jacinthe and Louise, Jacques Cossette-Trudel, Marc Carbonneau, Yves Langlois (alias Pierre Séguin) and Nigel Hamer.
Obviously, when the Libération cell takes action and kidnaps the United Kingdom’s commercial attaché in Montreal, James Richard Cross, the demands of the FLQ will find echoes throughout the country, but also internationally. This is the first political kidnapping in North American history. In exchange for the release of the diplomat, the Liberation cell formulated seven demands including the release of 23 FLQ political prisoners, the broadcast and publication of the FLQ manifesto, a sum of $500,000 and safe passage to Cuba or Algeria for its members.
First page of the FLQ manifesto, broadcast on Radio-Canada in October 1970.
Original mimeographed copy. MCH archives, André Duchesne funds
The pressure is at its peak
The Quebec government has only 24 hours to respond to requests. He quickly rejects the ultimatum, but says he is open to negotiating with the kidnappers.
Montreal is on alert, all the city’s police officers are trying to find traces of the Libération cell. Around thirty people were arrested while Radio-Canada television and numerous French-speaking newspapers published the FLQ manifesto. The leader of the Parti Québécois, René Lévesque, published an article begging the FLQ not to inflict harm on the British diplomat. The kidnappers throw ballast, they prove that Cross is still alive and extend the deadline to October 10 at 6 p.m.
On October 10, just before the deadline, Quebec Justice Minister Jérôme Choquette officially declared that if Cross was released, the kidnappers would be granted safe exile outside Canada.
Shortly after the deadline, two members of the other group, the Chénier cell, kidnapped the Deputy Prime Minister of Quebec, Pierre Laporte, in front of his residence on the South Shore of Montreal.
None of the kidnappers’ other demands will be met.
CANADIAN PRESS
Pierre Elliot Trudeau enters the scene
On October 12, Prime Minister Trudeau asked the Canadian army to deploy soldiers in the federal capital. To respond to criticism, Trudeau will say:
“There are a lot of sensitive souls who don’t like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say to them is: go ahead, keep crying. It is more important to maintain law and order in society than to worry about the weak. »
” Well, just watch me. »
While a senior official begins negotiations with the FLQ lawyer, Mr.e Robert Lemieux, the Quebec government officially requests help from the army. In less than an hour, 1,000 soldiers were deployed to Montreal. Robert Bourassa and the mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, are still calling for additional federal aid.
In the streets of Montreal, more than 3,000 students gathered to support the FLQ and asked public decision-makers to accept the terrorists’ demands.
The pressure is so strong that the Quebec government announces its intention to release five FLQ prisoners on parole and to guarantee the two FLQ cells a safe escort out of the country in exchange for the hostages.
The largest peacetime military intervention in Canada
On October 16, at the request of the Prime Minister of Quebec, the municipal government of Montreal and the Montreal police service, federal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau made a serious decision. He put in place the War Measures Act.
Front page of the Journal de Montréal of October 16, 1970 – The war measures law was decreed by Ottawa during the October crisis.
Archives/Le Journal de Montreal
The FLQ is declared an outlaw, the normal civil liberties of citizens are suspended. From then on, arrests and detentions without charge are authorized. 48 hours after the law was promulgated, more than 250 people were arrested.
The next day at the end of the evening, Pierre Laporte was found dead, not far from Saint-Hubert airport, in the trunk of a car. According to the coroner’s report, he died of asphyxiation, probably strangled with the chain he wore around his neck. The Quebec media communicated the sad news, a certain confusion reigned in the press rooms. The radio goes further and falsely announces the death of James Cross. The information will quickly be denied.
The Canadian Army on our streets in the fall of 1970.
Germain Beauchamp
The outcome of the crisis
British diplomat James Richard Cross will finally be released unharmed after spending 59 days in a room in an apartment in Montreal North.
He will be released in exchange for an unhindered evacuation of all members of the Libération cell (including Louise Lanctôt’s infant daughter) to the island of Cuba in the Caribbean.
As for the kidnappers and murderers of Pierre Laporte, they will be arrested later after several weeks on the run.
Gabriel Hudon, one of the founding members of the FLQ, during his trial in 1963.
Public domain
A controversial episode in Canadian political life, the October crisis practically marks the end of terrorist actions in Quebec. The invocation of the War Measures Act is harshly criticized by nationalist leaders in Quebec and by civil liberties advocates across the country.
In 1988, the War Measures Act was replaced by the Emergency Measures Act.