Translating the printemps érable
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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
July 11 2012
Original French text: http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/societe/2012/07/11/003-sq-cout-manifestation.shtml
A protester in Victoriaville, May 5 2012
The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) does not want to disclose the costs of deploying officers to maintain order during student protests against tuition fee increases. In a message to Radio Canada dated July 6, the SQ said that communicating such information could negatively affect public security.
Radio Canada requested information from the SQ under access to information legislation, to determine “costs of police services delivered by the SQ having to do with student protests in Quebec.” The request specifially names “regular and overtime pay” for officers between the weeks of February 13 and May 21.
After studying the issue, Luc Joli-Coeur, who is responsible for providing the public with access to SQ documents, concluded that divulging such information could “affect the security of the public and the state, and would effectively reduce the effectiveness of a program, a plan of action or a security protocol designed to protect property or people.”
Me Claude Laferrière, Lawyer June 11, 2012
Original French Text: http://quebec.huffingtonpost.ca/me-claude-laferri%C3%A8re/arnaque-temps-supplementaire-police_b_1585323.html
Québec taxpayers are being treated like cash cows or, at best, taken for patsies. Now you have retired cops and criminal experts providing colour commentary on police actions during student demonstrations, as if they were hockey games.
We have gone beyond all predictions for the number of demonstrations and of arrests.
On the ground, police officers hurry to their assignments which they seem to enjoy — at double overtime, of course — while small businesses are going broke — with the exceptions of café patios now serving a new clientele — and Montreal’s mayor is freaking out.
By Charles Faribault | TVA News 12 June 2012
Original French Text: http://tvanouvelles.ca/lcn/infos/national/archives/2012/06/20120612-175641.html
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (ACLCL) is preparing a damning report on the use of excessive police forcethat has occurredsince the beginning of the student strike in Quebec. The organization, which had severely criticized the conduct of Toronto police during the G20 summit, recognizes similar abuses in the current conflict.
Student Demonstration against tuition hikes in front of the National Assembly of Quebec, Thursday, March 1st, 2012. (Archives, Journal de Québec)
Mass arrests, violations of fundamental rights, police misconduct, excessive force, preventive questioning, restriction of civil liberties, no, this isn’t Montréal 2012, but Toronto 2010. After Toronto, the ACLCL had produced a devastating report on the conduct of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the RCMP. The organization is now concerned by what it sees as a repetition of the same excesses on the part of the Montreal police (SPVM) and the Sûreté du Québec (SQ).
“What we are witnessing is the replay of the same police techniques. We’re talking about so-called preventative arrests, where people who haven’t done anything are being arrested just because police think they could be dangerous. It’s very troubling. This conduct is excessive and illegal,” explains Nathalie Desrosiers of the ACLCL.
According to the association, what’s happening in Quebec is dangerous for democracy and risks undermining police authority in the long term. The consequences could have a domino effect and important social ramifications. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has even taken up the case.
“An increasing number of surveys reveal that Toronto’s citizens have less and less confidence in the police. There are legal and financial consequences,” added the association’s representative.
The organization is compiling a series of witness reports and facts about police conduct that is expected to be published in a scathing report and once again tarnish Canadian police forces’ international image.
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.
Vincent Larouche June 11, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/justice-et-faits-divers/201206/11/01-4533810-un-militant-etudiant-arrete-en-route-pour-les-funerailles-de-sa-soeur.php
Taking advantage of the fact that his sister had passed away and that he had to go to her funeral in Chicoutimi, the police have just stopped a student protester that they have had their sights on for quite some time.
Mathieu B. Girard, age 19, an activist from the student union of Maisonneuve College, was driving with his mother and his brother on Highway 20, earlier today, when a Sûreté du Québec patrol car intercepted them near Saint-Hyacinthe.
The policemen had arrested the young activist for mischief, at the request of the Montreal police. The rest of the family had continued on to Chicoutimi for the funeral, but not him. He should appear in court, tomorrow, at the Montreal courthouse.
“We can confirm that a person was stopped in link with the student movement. The person was wanted and will be transferred to the operational centre concerned with mischief committed in the public transport network”, explained Sergeant Laurent Gingras, spokesperson for the SPVM, who refuses to share any personal information about the young man’s situation.
Mathieu B. Girard’s sister had killed herself last Saturday. It was he who had discovered the body, and he had had to meet with the police concerning this case.
Collective of authors May 31, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/351265/violence-a-lionel-groulx-voici-notre-version
The events that led to the deployment of Sûreté du Québec forces at Collège Lionel Groulx on May 15 could be compared to Stanley Milgram’s well-known psychological experiment .
In the early 1960s, Milgram demonstrated that an isolated subject could be convinced to administer supposedly lethal electric shocks to a third person in an adjoining room, submitting to an authority figure who was in the subject’s presence. In this situation, the isolated subject renounces his or her own autonomy and moral sensibility, becoming nothing more than the executive agent of authority.
Louis-Philippe Ouimet June 3, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/societe/2012/06/03/004-nadeau-dubois-classe-interrogatoire-sq.shtml
EXCLUSIVE - On April 27th, Gabriel Nadeau Dubois, co-spokesperson for la Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (CLASSE) was interrogated for a lengthly period by detectives from the Sûreté du Québec (SQ)’s division sur la menace extrémiste (extremist threat division).
The same week, Public Security Minister Robert Dutil claimed that Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois had incited violence.
By Rima Elkouri, published in La Presse, May 30, 2012
Original French Text Here: http://www.lapresse.ca/debats/chroniques/rima-elkouri/201205/30/01-4529910-le-prof-de-philo-et-ses-lunettes-de-ski.php
“It’s really the nightstick blow that started it all.”
The man who is talking to me in a hoarse voice is named Olivier Roy. He’s 31. Ski goggles are sitting on his table. He’s visibly exhausted. Visibly indignant.
By day, Olivier Roy is a philosophy teacher at CÉGEP de Terrebonne. By night, for more than a month, he has demonstrated against police brutality. He has participated in some thirty marches. He was still out there Tuesday night.
Olivier tells me, almost shyly, that he recently had to buy these ski goggles. Not for skiing, you understand. Neither for confronting the police—that’s not at all his style. But just to be able to demonstrate peacefully without worrying about his eyes. For more than a month, he’s felt too much pepper. He’s seen too many plastic bullets fired, too many concussion grenades that can blind a person. After his marathon of demonstrations, he has arrived at the sad conclusion that a citizen who wishes to protest needs two things; ski goggles and a camera.
by Marc-André Cyr, May 14th, 2012, Voir
The original French text can be found here: http://voir.ca/marc-andre-cyr/2012/05/14/regardez-le-dans-l%E2%80%99oeil/
The image is intolerable. A horror.
Maxence is bloody. He was hit directly in the face with a plastic bullet. While he was semi-conscious his friends carried him through the streets of Victoriaville, to the sounds of screams of fear and rage coming from protesters, and the sound of police officers pounding their clubs on their shields, in time to the pace of their steps.
Look him in the eye. You’re lucky, he’s been left with one.
Tell him the police officers “did their job well”, with “professionalism”, “rigor” and “discipline”. [Finet, spokesperson for the SQ].
Tell him that ‘it’s terrible’, but ‘it’s a risk, as we know, when there is violence’ [Minister Dutil].
Remind him that he should be ‘happy’, since the protest ended with ‘very little damage’ [Rayes, mayor of Victoriaville].
Look him in the eye and talk to him about the ‘victimization of vandals in Victoriaville’. Tell him it gave you a ‘good laugh’ [Martineau]. He’ll think it’s all well and good.
Ask him to condemn the ‘violence and intimidation’ of the strikers [Beauchamp].
Tell him he has to stop saying the state is ‘violent’ [Pratte].
Explain to him why the forces of order have made more than 1300 arrests and caused dozens of injuries since the beginning of the conflict. Remind him that we have to protect property, that we must respect the law, and that violence is perpetrated by ‘vandals’ and not by the police.
Look him in the eye and tell him that, unlike in the case of him and his friends, this conflict has caused REAL victims.
Such as Line Beauchamp’s secretary, who’s glasses were broken by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois!
Like the students opposing the strike who have been intimidated by some very, very mean emails [Journal de Montreal].
And like poor Martineau who was ‘floored’ by a protest of ‘social rage’ in front of his house (protesters even exploded authentic firecrackers) [Bock-Cote].
Look him in the eye and explain to him how you feel ‘taken hostage’ by protesters [Tremblay].
Tell him how hard it was to arrive two hours late to work on account of ‘student terrorism’ [La Presse].
Tell him about your ‘fear’ and your ‘anger’ as a metro user [Journal de Montreal].
Explain to him why you want police officers - even the army – to stop the strikers who ‘are sewing terror in the streets of Montreal’ [Duhaime].
Go ahead, it’s only a small effort, look him straight in the eye. Two times lucky: not only has he been left with one eye, but it wasn’t even him whose ear was ripped off, so he can still hear you perfectly.
Don’t be intimidated.
Take a big breath of this satisfying liberalism which we call our own and tell him words which he is certainly in need of hearing: ‘We’re living in a democracy’.
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.
