MONTREAL – A suspicious white powder discovered in an envelope being processed at an east-end Canada Post distribution centre at 2:50 a.m. Monday, police said, remained under investigation more than five hours later.
Five employees on the premises in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district, were being monitored, police added.
They were showing no ill health effects.
“We cannot confirm that this is something that is harmless and we cannot confirm that it isn’t,” Constable Anie Lemieux of Montreal police said before 6 a.m.
She described the contents of the mystery envelope as “some kind of substance, something that looks like a white powder.”
The identity of the addressee “is not going to be revealed,” Constable Yannick Ouimet added at 8 a.m.
At that point, he added, “the envelope has not been opened.”
He did not immediately explain why police have been able to provide media with the colour of an apparent powder contained in an unopened envelope.
Ouimet did say it had not been determined whether the envelope contained any kind of message.
The discovery follows a recent flurry of apparently similar instances, largely targetting offices of various members of the provincial Liberal government.
Most notably, such a powder was received – and subsequently determined to have been harmless – at the riding office of Quebec Premier Jean Charest, in Sherbrooke.
Several media outlets also received similar envelopes.
In many of those those instances, the powder was determined to be baking powder.
Some of those envelopes included letters, some of which mentioned anthrax, deadly spores which have been used as biological weapons.
The letters bore the signature of a mysterious group styling itself the “Forces armées révolutionaires du Québec,” which can be roughly translated as “the revolutionary armed forces of Quebec.”
Letter carriers reporting for duty at the distribution centre, on Ontario St. E. near Letourneux Ave., were gathering outside the immediate area, with their access barred by police tape.
Within the premises, following standard protocol for such incidents, were response team members with specialized training from Montreal police, the Montreal Island fire department and Urgences-Santé.
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