MONTREAL – There was controversy, high tempers and flag bashing when three Quebec groups supporting separatism gathered at a rally in Montreal over the weekend.
The Progressive Movement for Quebec independence, DénonciNation and the Rassemblement des mouvements indépendantistes collégiaux met in front of Montreal’s City Hall on Saturday to denounce Canada’s position on Palestine, celebrate Quebec’s ‘Maple Spring’ and independence movements around the world – and stomp on the Canadian flag. Literally.
In a video, sent in to Global News by a viewer, demonstrators are seen encouraging one another to throw a Canadian flag on the street.
Several approach the flag to stomp on it and then loud cheers can be heard as a passing car inadvertently drives over it.
The video, which has over 11,000 views, is being distributed by a group called “Putbacktheflag.com,” whose aim is to keep the flag in Quebec’s National Assembly and ensure that Anglophone rights are respected in Quebec.
The Parti Quebecois government took steps to officially remove the Canadian flag from the provincial legislature in mid-November, when Yves Francois Blanchet, the government whip, made a formal request to remove the Canadian flag on the 36th anniversary of the election of the first PQ government in 1976.
Short of a last-minute agreement, Quebec politicians in the National Assembly will vote this week on the presence of the Canadian flag in the legislature.
The flag controversy began when the PQ first came to power, when, at a swearing-in ceremony in the red room for its MNAs, the Canadian flag was conspicuously absent, setting off a flurry of headlines across the country.
Despite the flag contoversy in the province, a recent poll revealed that two-thirds of Quebecers consider the Maple Leaf flag a source of pride.
Pictured above: Canadian flag absent from PQ signing in ceremony in Quebec’s National Assembly.
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