News

Police Used Agents Provocateurs at Security Summit: CEP

By Ryan McGreal
Published August 22, 2007

According to video footage provided by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) Union yesterday, it looks like the police attempted to use agents provocateurs dressed in black clothes with bandanas covering their faces, to encite violence among the protestors at the North American security summit in Montebello, Quebec.

An agent provocateur is a person who infiltrates a group and attempts to disrupt its activities or to tar its reputation by associating acts of violence with the group.

Here's the video posted to YouTube, which shows an exchange between Dave Coles, the CEP president, and the alleged agents, who were attempting to incite violence:

The video runs for five minutes, but the payoff comes when Coles loses his patience and demands the agents take their masses off, repeating, "This is a peaceful demonstration".

Someone pulls down an agent's mask and Coles says, "You're a cop, aren't you!"

The agent steps back into the line of riot police, who absorb him gently and lead him away.

At the end, Coles says, "They were trying to create a riot, so they could suck us all in to get beat up."

Update: the Canadian Press has published an article on this event.

Ryan McGreal, the editor of Raise the Hammer, lives in Hamilton with his family and works as a programmer, writer and consultant. Ryan volunteers with Hamilton Light Rail, a citizen group dedicated to bringing light rail transit to Hamilton. Ryan wrote a city affairs column in Hamilton Magazine, and several of his articles have been published in the Hamilton Spectator. His articles have also been published in The Walrus, HuffPost and Behind the Numbers. He maintains a personal website, has been known to share passing thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, and posts the occasional cat photo on Instagram.

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By kevin (registered) | Posted August 28, 2007 at 11:27:06

Didn't the Hamilton cops do that during the Red Hill protests?

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