The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) has opened a disciplinary investigation into three of its police officers who attended a rally of conspirators and openly criticized the health measures decreed by the Legault government.
The three police officers are featured in a video posted online on December 30, when 16,461 new cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in Quebec.
Two of them even said they were uncomfortable enforcing the laws in force in the province.
Policewoman Marie-Claude Nadeau, who normally patrols the Maskoutains RCM in Montérégie, speaks there in front of an audience of unmasked supporters.
“I am experiencing a conflict of loyalty because I have to apply new recommendations decided by decree and not voted on by all the elected members of the National Assembly who are once morest my values because they want to be discriminatory”, proclaims – her in a solemn tone.
“I will not be able to serve this justice with integrity,” she adds, eliciting heavy applause.
The policewoman is dressed in a black uniform with the badge of Police for Freedom, a movement born in Spain which now has a branch in Quebec called Police for Freedom (see box).
Marie-Claude Nadeau, whom her colleagues describe as a good patroller, finally hung up on us following several attempts to reach her.
“Mandate that violates rights”
Ion Patras, also a patroller, says in the video that the emergency health measures undermine the policeman’s mission.
“We cannot participate blindly in the execution of a mandate which violates the laws of our country”, he launches on stage.
“As a police officer, I speak out for respect for bodily autonomy and the individual’s free choice of whether or not to receive medical treatment”, believes the one who also thinks that the media and the government exercise total control over information disclosed to the public. We were unable to reach him.
Nothing objectionable according to him
The third police officer targeted by the SQ’s Professional Standards Department investigation is Stéphane Lamarre, a road safety monitor who works at the SQ station in Boucherville.
He does not speak at the assembly, but appears on a video promoting the group Police for Freedom.
We see him meditating with his colleagues, in images interspersed with excerpts from a famous speech by Nelson Mandela in Soweto a few months before the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Joined by our Investigation Office, he sees nothing protesting in his presence within the group.
“It goes back to the ethics of the police officer, which is to protect and serve the population with the Constitution and the Charter,” he said.
what Police for Freedom ?
Movement Police for Freedom was born in Spain at the start of the pandemic, to claim that the health measures decreed by Madrid were liberticidal and disproportionate.
In Quebec, the group is called Policemen for freedom.
The speeches heard during the assembly broadcast at the end of December all have in common the ideology according to which the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution make inapplicable the decrees adopted by the Council of Ministers of François Legault.
“They are clearly inspired by the Freeman on the Land ideology,” observes a police source who is familiar with this kind of anti-statist movement.
“That is to say, they do not see themselves as bound by laws passed by the state. ”
