Mario Bachand the Activist

If we are to understand the strategy, policies and actions of the Canadian government to meet FLQ terrorism, the separatist threat generally, and the social and political disorder and conflict within Quebec society of the day, one must look carefully at what brought it about, the forces and events that motivated and shaped it.  But how to do that?

Our approach is to focus on certain events shed shed light on the larger currents and issues. By analysis linked concretely by event, time and context to those currents.

The first of those events is the assassination of Mario Bachand. A mystery  that for a quarter of a century seemed beyond solution. Hidden by an amorphous cloud of disinformation which, curiously, keeps reappearing, especially when there are attemps to solve the mystery. A recycling of the falsehoods that first appeared in the days after that 29th of March 1971, in a modest apartment in the Paris banlieue St-Ouen, two visitors, a young man and woman from Montreal, during lunch with Mario Bachand, pulled out a .22-calibre pistol and shot three bullets at his head. The third bullet into the top centre of his skull, to ensure his death.

A young man and woman had arrived at the luncheon carrying a pistol, possibly silenced, who had never before met their victim, then taking the trouble to fire three .22-calibre bullets to his head. 

A note on investigation and senendipity

It was by chance that this author came across the mystery of the assassination of Mario Bachand. I had ealier brought a story to the CBC Fifth Estate about an accused Soviet spy within the RCMP Security Service, Leslie James Bennett. That story, too, had come by chance. While visiting my parents home in Ottawa, from my home in Vancouver B.C., I happened upon a book by Tom Mangold in my bookshelf. In the index was the code word “Tango”, referring to a Soviet spy within the RCMP, which knows the identity. That meant, I reasoned, that they knew that Leslie James Bennett was not a spy. 

The CBC Fifth Estate investigation uncovered the real spy in the RCMP, Sgt. Gilles G. Brunet. The story compelled the Canadian government and the RCMP to clear Leslie James Bennett completely, and to pay conpensation for having destroyed his life.

The serendipity did not stop there. Following upon the Leslie James Bennett story, the CBC Fifth Estate asked me to consult documents in Canada’s National Archives about RCMP counterterrorism and the FLQ. Several weeks after beginning my reseach, an archivist mentioned that there was a large number of documents of the MacDonald Commission into RCMP actions during that struggle. There were, in fact, 125 boxes of documents that had been processed under the Access to Information Act by the Privy Council Office (PC), employing a team of officials from the related Departments and services, including External Affairs, RCMP, CSIS, National Defence and the Solicitor General’s Office. A transcription of testimony by the Director General Intelligence and Security(DGIS) of the RCMP Security Service had an intriguing passage that told of two meetings, 24 and 26 March, 1971, of Starnes, Solicitor General Jean-Pierre Goyer, and Deputy Solicitor General Ernest Côté. The last meeting attended also by RCMP Commissioner Higgitt. The meetings concerned a”grave and imminent threat abroad”. Close reading, later supported by interview, revealed that the supposed threat involved the FLQ, in Paris. Goyer said he had discussed the matter with the Prime Minister. Goyer ordered Starnes to conduct an operation to deal with the supposed threat. Starnes refused, saying it was hazardous and unnecessary. Goyer said he would consult with the Prime Minister. At the following meeting, on the 26th of March, Goyer informed Starnes that he had spoken with the Prime Minister about the matter, and that the Prime Minister had ordered that, “Unless there were strong arguments to the contrary, the operation should go ahead.” (Testimony John Starnes, NAC, RG 33/128, acc. 91-92/099, vol. 2, file C-36, pp. 4681-4700.)

In sum, the Prime Minister gives an order to the Solicitor General for the RCMP to conduct an operation, RCMP DGIS Starnes refuses to conduct the operation until direct intervention by the Prime Minister.

What was that about? I asked myself. Which led me to interview the ex-Deputy Solicitor General, Ernest Côté. After a casual discussion about the FLQ and related counterterrorism, I asked a little question. “The meetings of 24 and 26 March, of the Solicitor General Jean-Pierre Goyer and DGIS Starnes, and for the second meeting that including RCMP Commissioner Len Higgitt, were they about the killing of Mario Bachand?”

“Yes”, he replied.

Was the Prime Minister concerned about a particular threat from Mario Bachand or about the possibility he would return to Quebec and renew the FLQ?”

“Both”, he replied.

My belief is that there was no direct threat from Mario Bachand in Paris, that the idea was a construction to cover the real reason, that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the RCMP feared he would return to Quebec and start the FLQ again. There is, to my knowledge, evidence to the contrary.

I interviewed Ernest Côté on several later occasions. On each occasion he refused to speak further of the meetings of 24, 26 March 1971. “You want a clear statement from me”, he said. But John Starnes and I have been friends since 1944, and I won’t give it to you. And you have so much evidence that you don’t need it.”

He had no idea of the capacity of the Canadian medie to repeatedly recycle the cover story of the assassination of Mario Bachand, and obscure the truth.

The 7-Up riot of 27 February, 1968

In the Town of Mount-Royal, early on the evening of Tuesday, February 27, 1968, a truck with loudspeakers, two fleur-de-lis flags and the red banner of the Communist International drove slowly along Graham Boulevard. Behind it walked twenty-five hundred men and women, many of them students. Most marchers came from Quebec’s largest unions, the Conféderation des syndicats nationaux (CSN) and the Fédération des travailleurs du Québec (FTQ). Others came from the RIN and other political groups, including Mario Bachand’s CIS. Thirty minutes later, they reached the 7UP bottling plant, a three-storey, glass-walled building. The plant had been on strike since June 1967, and the company had brought in non-union workers to replace those who had walked out. Someone picked up a stone and hurled it through a window. In less than ten minutes, demonstrators had broken every window on the front of the building. Molotov cocktails and burning objects of all kinds followed. Four men swung a heavy iron pipe downspout against the large wooden doors. The wood splintered; someone produced gasoline; in seconds, flames licked across what remained of the doors.

Inside the plant, firemen carried extinguishers from one blaze to another. Outside, a dozen youths surrounded two news photographers. They threw punches and blows with placards, breaking the cameras and severely injuring the eye of one photographer.

When police arrived, the rioters streamed toward City Hall, fifteen blocks away, where they found two hundred police waiting for them. A young man, shouting through a loud hailer, invited the mayor to receive a petition in support of the manual workers of the town, who had been on strike for weeks. The mayor did not appear. Demonstrators pulled down the Canadian flag and tore it to pieces. A road sign was thrown through a picture window, and a flaming placard was tossed at the line of police before the demonstrators marched back towards the 7UP plant. At the Industrial Acceptance Corporation, a collection agency, they paused for a speech about “capitalist exploiters.” A youth picked up a mailbox, staggered to the front of the building and sent it crashing through a window. Others took flowerpots from light standards and hurled them through the windows.

Back at the plant, demonstrators met a line of helmeted police, armed with clubs. A pitched battle erupted, with wild shouts and the thud of clubs hitting skulls. Eventually the police prevailed, dispersing the demonstrators toward Montreal.

It was eight o’clock. In a nearby mailbox, police found a bomb. There was also a note: “The FLQ is not dead.” A man from the bomb squad cautiously approached the mailbox, holding a pair of wire cutters. Across the street a photographer had set off a flash camera. “If I had a gun, I would shoot you right now!” the police man yelled.

The 7-UP plant riot was one of the most violent episodes in Quebec labour history. Dozens were injured, two seriously, and six were arrested, among them two young men whose fate would be closely linked to that of Mario Bachand. Pierre-Paul Geoffroy, twenty-three, a student of political science at College Ste-Marie, and an RIN member, was charged with assaulting a policeman, but the charge was later dropped. Michel Lambert, twenty, also a student at College Ste-Marie, was charged for having thrown the mailbox through the window.

The Security Service found the 7UP riot particularly disturbing, for it involved an explosive mixture of Quebec nationalism, labour unrest, street violence and terrorism. Moreover, the young man who had invited the mayor to appear and encouraged demonstrators to throw stones through windows of houses with a “bourgeois appearance” was Mario Bachand.

Saint-Jean Baptiste-Day riot, 24 June 1968

The Saint-Jean Baptiste-Day (Since 1977, the fête nationale du Québec. celebration in Montreal of June 24 1968, attended by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was the scene of one of the most serious riots in Quebec history. One in which Mario Bachand played an important role. 

In the days leading up to June 24, members of Bachand’s CIS (Comité Indépendance-Socialisme) constructed placards using lengths of wooden hockey sticks, some sharpened to spear–like points. Glass jars were filled with paint, turpentine and battery acid. Tactics for confronting mounted police were discussed.

By early evening on June 24, 400,000 persons lined Sherbrooke Street. The parade began with a marching band and a line of floats. Shortly after eight oʼclock, it began to go wrong. Four members of Bachandʼs CIS hoisted Pierre Bourgault on their shoulders and began carrying him across Sherbrooke Street towards the reviewing stand. A flying wedge of police pushed through the crowd, arrested Bourgault and led him away to a paddy wagon. Meanwhile, a motorcycle policeman drove back and forth in front of the reviewing stand to keep demonstrators away. A block away, at Cherrier and Amherst Streets, two hundred flag–waving demonstrators appeared, chanting, “Le Québec aux Québecois” “Trudeau au poteau” and “Trudeau niaiseu.”

When two policemen attempted to make an arrest, the mob turned on them and beat them severely. A full–scale riot broke out, with waves of demonstrators surging across Parc Lafontaine, battling with police as they tried to reach the reviewing stand.

At 9:20 p.m., the prime minister took his seat on the reviewing stand and was greeted with cheers and applause. But in the background were the ominous sounds of firecrackers and jeers. At ten oʼclock, a shower of bottles rained down; Mayor Jean Drapeau and other dignitaries rose from their seats and hurried off to seek shelter. Trudeauʼs RCMP bodyguards implored him to leave as well. Trudeau half stood, then gestured angrily, as if to say, You can go if you like, but I am staying. He resumed his seat, rested his elbows on the railing in front of him and stared unblinkingly out into the darkness. The two RCMP officers remained with him, sitting down on either side.

Beyond, the violence continued. Policemen were struck by bottles, some suffering severe cuts to their faces. A young boy ran towards a tree to find cover. As he ran, a bottle crashed onto his skull. He fell to the ground, unconscious; his mother went into hysterics. A pregnant woman, terrified at the sight of mounted police charging into the crowds, fell to her knees and pleaded for them to stop.187

That night, police dragged 292 rioters to police stations across the city. Jacques Lanctôt, the friend of Mario Bachandʼs who had set up a short–lived FLQ cell in the summer of 1963, was tossed unconscious into the back of a police van. When he came to, he met a big man with unkempt hair and a cataract in his left eye — Paul Rose.

The scene of Trudeau staring down the mob was televised across Canada. In the election the following day, Canadians voted for him in overwhelming numbers.

The demonstration of 16 October 1968

Mario Bachand the Activist
Mario Bachand leads demonstration 16 October 1968

In the afternoon of October 16, 1968, ten thousand students from McGill University, CEGEP Vieux-Montréal and the School of Fine Arts demonstrated their support for the striking students of CEGEP (Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel). They walked under grey skies in the heart of Montreal, from McGill along Sainte-Catherine Street to Saint-Laurent Boulevard, then up the St. Lawrence River to the University of Montreal arena. They are led by the CIS (Comité-indépendance socialisme), created by Mario Bachand, who can be seen directly behind the CIS sign. Two metres behind Bachand is Paul Rose, wearing a large black hat with a white ribbon, holding a cigarette in his right hand. Two years later, Paul Rose would lead the FLQ’s Chenier cell, responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Quebec’s Minister of Labour and Deputy Premier Pierre Laporte.

Among the demonstrators were a large number of people who played a role in the spectrum of activism in Quebec at the time. Student leaders. CEGEP students. Striking workers. Workers at the Lord Company, a steel company that had been on strike for several months, are visible.

It occurred at a time of violence and disorder unprecedented in the world.

There is no doubt that it is scenes like this one that have caused the RCMP, and Canadian and Quebec authorities in general, to be concerned about Mario Bachand. He was able to form radical movements, such as the CEI, and bring them to the streets. In the extreme, as Paul Rose’s presence shows, these events merged with terrorist violence.