Translating the printemps érable
If you would like to volunteer and join the effort, please contact us at the above email before embarking on any translation work, in order to avoid any redundancies. We cannot accept translations that have not been cleared with us first.
-----------------------
For more useful English-language sources on the conflict, see:
CUTV - broadcasting live from the protests nightly
Rouge Squad - Tactical Translation Team
Rabble.ca's Maple Spring Coverage
Translated from the original French text which can be found here: http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/dossiers/conflit-etudiant/201205/20/01-4527075-les-casseurs-ont-mis-le-feu-a-montreal-dit-gerald-tremblay.php
Philippe Teisceira-Lessard May 20th, 2012
Gérald Tremblay flew off the handle on Sunday, the morning after one of the most violent riots since the beginning of the student crisis.
The mayor of Montréal, visibly fed up by the excess of violence of the demonstrations in the past few days, repeated that he had confidence in his police force, adding that they had not yet implemented the special law that was passed in Québec on Friday because they had not finished analyzing it.
“The SPVM has not yet applied Bill 78 because they are in the process of evaluating how to implement it,” he explained. “What they did yesterday was a faithful application of the by-law that was adopted yesterday by the municipal council. People must give us their itinerary before leaving to participate in a demonstration.”
Yesterday, the police published a press release confirming that they were going to apply the special law “respectfully, transparently, and with discernment.” The text was vague on the mechanisms for applying the law, suggesting that peaceful demonstrators could be spared.
Mayor Tremblay refused to lay blame on the police for not having applied the measures contained in Bill 78 during the riot last night.
Gérald Tremblay added that the attentions of Montrealers should be turned towards the “totally unacceptable, intolerable” acts of the rioters, rather than the forces of order.
“We must stop talking about the SPVM, and start talking about the demonstrators and the rioters that set Montréal on fire,” he emphasized, visibly outraged. “This is what we need to start talking about, not always evaluating the SPVM, [analyzing] if the SPVM did their job well or not, in a very, very difficult context that is becoming increasingly complex. The SPVM did remarkable work, meeting the expectations of Montrealers.”
[Ed. note: please note that we are translating the mayor’s words so that we can condemn them. The mayor of Montreal thinks that we should not pay any attention to police brutality, when inflicted on his own constituents.]
Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.
*Translating the printemps érable is a volunteer collective attempting to balance the English media’s extremely poor coverage of the student conflict in Québec by translating media that has been published in French into English. These are amateur translations; we have done our best to translate these pieces fairly and coherently, but the final texts may still leave something to be desired. If you find any important errors in any of these texts, we would be very grateful if you would share them with us at translatingtheprintempsderable@gmail.com. Please read and distribute these texts in the spirit in which they were intended; that of solidarity and the sharing of information.
