MONTREAL GAZETTE: We have nothing to hide - militia
R. LaCasse
Subject: MONTREAL GAZETTE: We have nothing to hide - militia
MONTREAL GAZETTE - SEPTEMBER 21, 2011
We have nothing to hide - militia
By JAN RAVENSBERGEN
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/have+nothing+hide+militia/5433521/story.html
The public face of the Milice patriotique québécoise said Tuesday
"everything we do is 100 per cent legal."
The self-styled militia favours Quebec political independence, provides
firearms training at gun clubs and recruits using social media. "If we were
doing anything even faintly criminal or wrong, we would have been arrested
long ago," Serge Provost said. "We're not hiding anything."
Provost said the 10-year-old group has about 800 active members and has been
growing. The Sûreté du Québec refused to say whether it is probing the
group's activities. "We can't confirm whether or not an investigation into
this group is under way," SQ Sgt. Ronald McInnis said. Montreal police
referred all queries to the SQ. "I'm sure we are under surveillance pretty
well 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," said Provost, a
42-year-old carpenter. "If we do something wrong, we're dead."
The group has grown by "between 75 and 100" during the past year, Provost
said, and its Facebook site lists 728 friends. Last November, it opened a
boutique stocked with a broad range of paramilitary gear and Patriotes
memorabilia on Ste. Catherine St. E. Its efforts to obtain a licence to sell
firearms at its boutique have proved unsuccessful. The Milice patriotique
runs "six (outdoor) training camps a year" - without firearms - and each is
attended by "20 or 25 people," Provost said. "We do not have the right for
firearms in the forest," he said. Instead, the group provides weapons
training at gun clubs "approved by the SQ, so we are legal by the law - by
the book."
The slogan on its primary website - at milice.qc.ca, written in French only
- - calls it "an independent force" and offers a capsule mission statement:
"For the defence of Quebec."
The site says the group would intervene to "protect against an aggressor or
invader who would want to assimilate the people or strip their riches or
territory."
Provost carries the rank of major and said the group has "15 to 20" members
who speak more English than French, "many of them allophones."
Apart from the SQ, he said, "CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence
Service) and the RCMP are fully aware of us."
Provost said he spent a halfday with CSIS representatives in early 2010 "and
they are regularly in contact with our members."
Beyond "CSIS and the RCMP on our shoulder . I talk regularly with police
lieutenants on the Montreal and Quebec (City) police forces."
Asked on whose authority he and the group operates, Provost responded: "The
authority of the people."
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