The whole Metro system except the yellow…
The whole Metro system except the yellow line has been bollixed up this morning by people throwing bricks on the tracks and pulling emergency brakes.
LATER: Further pranks were pulled around 2:15 pm when a smoke bomb was thrown into the tunnel at Berri-UQÀM.
What do I think? I actually think odds are this is the work of a small number of hotheads who aren’t thinking through how it reflects on the rest of the protesters – or don’t care. But I do not rule out the possibility that agents provocateurs could have set this up to drive a wedge between FEUQ and FECQ on the one hand, and the more radical CLASSE on the other.
EVEN LATER: Even CBC is considering the actions could be by people discrediting the student movement, and police are not accusing any group yet.
CR 07:47 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
Does anyone know when the lines will be running again?
Kate 08:18 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
The 8:30 news update from CBC said the blockages were being cleared then. If you’re going out after 9 you will probably be OK.
Ian 08:26 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
I got in OK by 8:10, caught the metro at 7:45 – the metro was just slow, not completely stopped – it should be fine now, maybe a bit more packed still than usual.
illmaticp 08:43 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
Got to Montmorency metro at 7:10am, metro didn’t take off till 7:30-40am. Crowded at every stop till Berri.
Got to work late, so thank you to the idiots that thought throwing things on the track will get the government to back down on tuition increase.
Do it more peacefully then disrupting regular folks from getting to work.
qatzelok 09:25 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
It’s unlikely “the students” would block the least expensive way to get to school. I agree with Kate: this was the work of agents provocateurs. Or hoodlums (same thing).
Steph 10:12 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
I believe “agents provocateurs” is reference to under-cover cops, not hoodlums or cowards who hide behind crowds to act out. Either way up next: kidnapped ministers?
Marc 12:05 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
Yes, “agents provocateurs” refers to undercover cops who stir the pot and it’s an incredibly convenient argument to make. It’s always agents provocateurs and never idiot anarchists taking advantage of a situation, right?
Adam 12:34 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
“It’s unlikely “the students” would block the least expensive way to get to school”
Are you seriously arguing that the students who have been blocking classrooms, blocking bridges, blocking roads and generally preventing other people from attending courses or going to work would block a way to get to school? I think what you meant to say is that it’s entirely predictable that they would do such a thing. Their whole mission is to shut schools down and that they have specifically threatened economic disruption.
Basically, these people seem to believe that it’s some kind of outrage if they don’t get everything they want, and now.
Of course nothing has been proven, but come on, it would be entirely consistent with what they’ve been doing. And yes it could be a false flag operation but for anyone who sympathizes with the students to get all “who, me? Never!” over this is just insulting.
paul 12:45 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
I heard it was the Spiders from Mars that did it; seems more credible at this point that blaming “agents provocateurs”
qatzelok 12:58 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
@ Steph “I believe “agents provocateurs” is reference to under-cover cops”
Government agents who intentionally break the law, and try to frame innocent people for it… are the worst kind of hoodlums. They are a sign that our government is a mafia, and not an institution for peace, order and good governance. They are the end of the line for a government’s legitimacy. So ‘hoodlums’ was the correct word.
Tux 13:01 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
The use of agents provocateurs to rile up protesters in order to incite them to behaviour that makes them look bad in the public eye is a tried and true method of cops and governments to help shut down dissent. As previously stated it’s just a rumour but we shouldn’t discount the possibility. The Toronto police did it at the G20.
Josh 14:37 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
@Marc: Agreed. It sounds very much like the apologists who swoop in after a sports riot to say that the perpetrators weren’t “real fans” of the team in question.
maureen 14:37 on 2012/04/16 Permalink
Adam is correct. This is consistent with the students increasing harassment of the citizens of Montreal. Who do they think is paying for them? They need to pay for a larger percentage of their post secondary education. I cannot afford to pay for them. They can express their opinion in the next election.
Kevin 07:13 on 2012/04/17 Permalink
Am I the only one who remembers students using cement to attach cinder blocks to the roadway in front of the Champlain bridge a month ago?
Anyone who claims that sabotaging the metro was the work of government agents had better have some strong proofp
Adam 08:31 on 2012/04/17 Permalink
It’s not the suggestion that it might be the cops that gets me. It’s the suggestion that the students would never do a thing like that. Occham’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. And the simplest explanation is that it was a group of students. It could be the state, but some evidence beyond “the students are angels!” would be nice.
Kate 08:51 on 2012/04/17 Permalink
One problem is that with shadowy agents like this it’s usually impossible to deliver a “strong proof” – what you have to judge by is cui bono? – who benefits from the act?
Adam 09:24 on 2012/04/17 Permalink
Well cui bono them blocking the freaking bridges? What came of that other than royally infuriating thousands of commuters? Obviously that was not the act of an agent of the state, the students who did it were not shy and proud of themselves. If you want to speculate, that’s fine, but to say that the absence of proof is proof in itself is absurd. That’s the kind of logic Dick Cheney could get behind: “obviously the inspectors can’t find the WMDs, he hid them so well!”
ant6n 12:19 on 2012/04/17 Permalink
Well I’d say it’s pretty obvious that an action like this does not represent the student movement as a whole, but rather some fringes, if that. Just like kidnapping ministers does not represent the separatist movement. So making that claim seems more absurd than saying it was “agent provocateurs”. The irony is that the same people who claim that it was obviously students (rather than provocateurs) fall for the simplistic conclusion that this is what the student movement stands for.
Adam 12:36 on 2012/04/17 Permalink
I’m certainly not claiming that it represents the student movement as a whole. That’s a straw man argument. It’s just laughable to watch people tie themselves into knots as they claim that it’s unthinkable that students could be behind this. Given what students have been on the record as doing (and threatening to do), interfering with the metro is entirely consistent with their words and deeds. And instead of condemning these acts, the leaders of the movement bleat that they don’t have a mandate to condemn violence and that it’s the government’s fault for not negotiating! Apparently any time a group of people wants the government to do something, they’re entitled to take any action they like until they get what they want. I certainly don’t see how that could possibly go wrong.
qatzelok 22:37 on 2012/04/17 Permalink
@ Kevin: “Am I the only one who remembers students using cement to attach cinder blocks to the roadway in front of the Champlain bridge a month ago?”
No. But I personally support any action that makes suburban commuters pay a heavier price for the damage they inflict on the rest of society. Highways to suburbia are sucking all of the money that could be spent on making us smarter and wiser people, instead of idiot consumers with no community participation.
“Anyone who claims that sabotaging the metro was the work of government agents had better have some strong proof”
Do you or anyone else have any proof that it was “the students?” If not, then we can assume we don’t know, and let our own experience decide which side of this discussion (profiteering and corrupt government/protesting youth) was responsible. I personally don’t take the metro, but I wouldn’t support “the students” shutting it down. And the government and its army of spin doctors knows this too.
montrealfilmguy 23:13 on 2012/04/17 Permalink
Yeah,that whole Champlain bridge episode still bugs me and especially about the part where
cops got all Einstein and brainy and took a “conscious ” decision to WAIT and gather buses
of students to minimize the running around and chasing….huh huh…yeah…sure.
That decision also plays a big part in traffic jamming methinks.
But rest assured,the media keeps playing that man-on-the-street (or man in car ) broken record getting quick soundbites about pissed they must be with the infernal no-good-fer-nuthin students.
Both sides played a part that day.