The news sent ripples of panic through the public and gave the impression that the FLQ was a large, powerful organization. Five days after the Cross kidnapping, the FLQ struck again kidnapping Pierre Laporte, the Quebec minister of labour and the government's senior Cabinet minister. "ĭespite some government concessions, the crisis escalated. we will be slaves until Quebecers, all of us, have used every means, including dynamite and guns, to drive out these big bosses of the economy and of politics, who will stoop to any action, however base, the better to screw us. "When in fact we will always be the diligent servants and bootlickers of the big shots. "We have had enough of promises of work and prosperity," the manifesto read. The Quebec government said it was open to negotiate with the FLQ and even allowed the group's staunchly separatist manifesto to be read on Radio-Canada. They also wanted their manifesto to be read on national television.Īt first, both the federal and provincial governments - led by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Premier Robert Bourassa - downplayed the kidnapping. The FLQ insisted these people were political prisoners. The kidnappers threatened to kill Cross unless the government released 23 prison inmates charged with crimes committed in the name of the Front. Now the self-described revolutionary movement was changing tactics. Since 1963, the FLQ had been involved in over 200 bombings in Quebec. On the morning of October 5, 1970, four men posing as deliverymen kidnapped British trade commissioner James Richard Cross from his plush Montreal residence.Ĭross was in the hands of Quebec's most radical separatist group, the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ). Pictured here, children watching soldiers (The Gazette and National Archives of Canada, PA-129833) In October 1970, the Quebec government requested the assistance of the Canadian Armed Forces to help protect politicians and important buildings during the October Crisis. In the fall of 1970, Canada was plunged into its worst crisis since the Second World War when a radical Quebec group raised the stakes on separatism. A radical Quebec group raises the stakes on separation and Ottawa invokes the War Measures Act
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