The public hearings of the Ménard Commission have started last Monday in Montreal. Martine Desjardins, former president of the FEUQ (Fédération Étudiante Universitaire du Québec), was the first speaker to be heard.
According to Stéphane Bergeron, the current Minister of Public Safety, the commission’s purpose is not to identify the culprits of the protests, but rather to learn from the events of the spring 2012, in order to prevent another “social crisis” of this kind from occurring in the future. Serge Ménard, who was formerly the Minister of Public Safety under the Parti Québécois, will be heading the commission, and will be backed by both Claudette Carbonneau, former president of the CSN, and Bernard Grenier, a retired judge.
The mandate of the Commission, that can be found on the official website, is organized along four lines:
- Analyzing the circumstances of the protests and of disrupting activities that took place in Quebec in the spring of 2012;
- Identifying the factors that contributed to the decline of the social climate and evaluating the consequences of the events of 2012 on the population;
- Release observations on the basis of verifiable facts;
- Formulating recommendations to the Minister of Public Safety no later than December 20, 2013.
Commission intends to analyse, notably:
- the techniques used by police forces;
- the methods used by the agitators during the protests;
- the economic and social impacts (the effect on the population’s general sense of security);
- the impact of social medias on the uprisings;
- the procedures and observations about other Western countries that faced similar periods of social unrest.
In his opening speech, Serge Ménard mentioned a total of 532 protests between February and September 2012, with 750,000 people involved and 2,255 arrests.
Many Hesitations
Put into place this past May, the Ménard Commission was highly criticised from the start, both by the opposition parties that targeted the credibility of Mrs Carbonneau, and by the student leaders. The former see in the Commission a financial loss, a political strategy and an unfair trial of the police officers, while the latter denounce the overly broad nature of its mandate. The student leaders would want a public and independent inquiry that would specially focus on the behaviour of the police.
The Montreal and Quebec’s Police Brotherhood, the Municipal Police Federation of Quebec and the Provincial Police Association all announced that they refuse to cooperate in the Commission’s work. Despite those reservations, Mr Ménard confirms that he has sufficient collaboration on the part of actors that were involved in the student protests, as well as witnesses, in order to report the totality of the events.
For his part, François Moisan, the communications director for Quebec City’s Police Service (SPVQ), confirms the full collaboration of his organization in the resolution of the Commission. “We will meet with the commissioner to explain how things went in Quebec City, and how the work that was done by the Police Service regarding the events of spring 2012”, indicates Mr Moisan (Le Soleil, 23 September 2013).
The Member Associations of the TaCEQ (Table de Concertation Étudiante du Québec)
At Laval University, the Confederation of the Student Associations of Laval University (CADEUL) will not take part in the Commission, since they did not obtain enough support from their own student-members. For its part, the Graduate Students Society of Laval (AELIÉS) has not determined its position yet.
The Regrouping of Graduate, Certificate and Doctoral Studies of Sherbrooke University (REMDUS) intends to work with the Commission. At McGill, the VP External of the Student Society of McGill University (SSMU), Sam Harris, maintains that the SSMU wants to take more time to study the question in greater details before it submits its final decision to the Council.
Common Front?
The decentralized nature of the TaCEQ allows the Member Associations to take separate positions when no consensus is reached at the Table. Regarding the question of the participation to the Ménard Commission, each member will thus go in its own way. Their collaboration will however continue with the utmost respect, and future, common measures can always be adopted on the Table on that point, if the Member Associations choose to adopt the measures.
