The October Crisis and the Commissions of Inquiry (1980)

This article reviews the conclusions of the principal investigations into the October 1970 Crisis during which the Quebec Minister of labor, Pierre Laporte, was found dead in the trunk of a car abandoned by his Front de liberation du Quebec (FLQ) kidnapers, while James Richard Cross, a British commercial attache, kidnapped by another FLQ cell, was found and liberated by the police. Amongst all the investigations that focused directly or indirectly on the October events, only the work of the investigator, Jean-Francois Duchaine, explicitly mandated by the Quebec government to conduct an investigation into this crisis and that of the Keable Commission on police operations were judged sufficiently relevant to be presented and discussed in the present article. The events as they were reported by each of these two investigations are presented and discussed, firstly as they relate to the Duchaine report and then to the Keable Commission. Finally, the question of whether the October Crisis was controlled politically or by the police is addressed and argued in light of the information revealed by the investigations and in view of the author's experience. Adapted from the source document.