Testimony of a Young Representative of a of Quebec Solidaire with Transcript

I had found the video of this young lady, Emilie Guimond-Belanger on the French version of the Facebook group, Demanding an inquiry of the G20.  I did post the video in the much larger English group with the hopes of finding members who do understand French.

For those who don’t know, Quebec Solidaire is a left winged provincial political party that formed just before the last election in response to a Parti Quebecois they felt lost their original mandate (that is, other than sovereignty; they had steered too far rightward).  They even hold one seat in the National Assembly. Therefore, you better believe that any representative attending any event on behalf of this party better behave themselves. Especially on behalf of a fledgeling party trying to go places.

Below is the video.

I was requested for either a video with English subtitles or an English language transcript. I didn’t have the patience for it, as I have migraines lately and have been under considerable stress as of late. However, I got in touch with a fellow Montreal CAPP member, Vanessa Gordon, who offered to transcribe the video herself for me. Here it is below.

Good day to all. So in fact to go to Toronto, Québec Solidaire mandated me to represent our political party, that is feminist, alter-globalist and pacifist. So in fact they gave me as instructions to demonstrate, simply walk on the streets, and this is exactly what I did. So principally there, as the representative of the National Commission of Women it is important for me to demonstrate for the right to abortion in fact, for women in developing countries. It is one of the values that is really important for me more personally.

Umm So, in fact, this, the actions that I took justifies in no way the humiliation and injustices that I suffered following. During the day on Sunday on two occasions, I could have been arrested on the streets of Toronto. Saturday. Excuse me, I’ve lost my sense of time. So during the day on Saturday on two occasions I could have  possibly been arrested but I chose to leave the sites where there was violence or where the police were organizing to do repression. I was arrested on the Sunday morning in a dormitory where essentially, there were a lot of people that came from buses leaving from Montreal: the CLAC, which is a community organization that finally organized the transport from Montreal to over there, the majority of the people slept there, so we were all together, finally we used that transport there we were arrested in the morning, in fact, as we were waking up, it was the people that woke us up, the police entered the place and they shouted for us to raise our hands and what followed was a certain number of horrors.

I was, from that moment, prevented from going to the toilet for six hours. It was possible to go only arriving to the detention centre, in front of a large number of people given that weren’t doors on the toilets, so a large number of police and people with whom I was with saw me go at that moment.

The first charge in fact that I received was at the moment when they entered in the dormitory to tell me that we were accused of participating in a riot, without having proof naturally given that the majority of us had not participated in riots, but this was not taken, retaken up in court following this. Afterwards when we were in detention and I had the opportunity to go to three different centres. What the common point was between the three centres was that we were always in contact with constant light, some neons were on us, so it was very hard to sleep, we didn’t have covers, we didn’t have beds, we had to sleep on the ground on the cold concrete and very dirty. We never had toilets that were closed. As far as food is concerned, they gave us food that were in fact some sandwiches of white bread with Kraft cheese inside, sometimes we went 7 hours without access to water or either food.

So it was therefore very difficult to sleep, notably because of the police disorganization, often they looked for people, they looked for people, where they were in which cells, so they shouted out some names and they were looking to know where these people were and so trying to sleep was impossible. Throughout the experience I managed to sleep 3 hours in 3 days.

Personally, I have a hypoglycemia problem, that is to say that if don’t eat regularly, complete meals, I can get nauseous, I can vomit, have a stomachache etcetera, which is what happened. At the moment when I declared to a police that I was having a hypoglycemic crises, that I really wasn’t doing well, I was pale, the police asked if I was diabetic, I  replied negative, so at that moment he continued on his way, so he didn’t get help. At a point I attracted the attention of a French speaking police officer and I explained to her and I said that I needed to see someone, someone like a doctor or someone that could give me food and she said listen, if you tell me that you need to see a doctor, than I don’t have a choice to bring you to see one. So she did that, at which point he gave me, he was very nice, he gave me an apple, a granola bar and he said that they would always make sure that you always have whole grain bread, that you always have food when you need it. This naturally was never done following that even when I told the people, the police that were so to say, in passing, always on constant rotation, it was never the same people that we saw.

The wait was very interminable, as I said it was during three days, we never had information, we didn’t know what was happening, what was going to happen to us and this is very difficult in a context where we are detained, we are imprisoned, we don’t know when ever we are going to eat, when we are going to get water, we don’t know when we get out of there and we don’t sleep, so the fact that we never got information on what was going to happen to us was very, very difficult, because we are always asking the question, we don’t know what is happening to us and we didn’t do anything bad in itself, apart from walking on the street and demonstrating. So that wait was very, very difficult and I had the opportunity to see a lawyer only 36 hours after having been arrested, which is in itself an incredible suffering because we don’t have the right to speak and we are being laughed at, by the police who are, in passing, not very compassionate because they take us for a gang of people from the black block, which are mean in themselves, so they give themselves the right to laugh at us, insult us without shame.

I had the opportunity to have two strip searches. For one of them I was accompanied by two women and the place was closed. In the other case, it was in a detention centre for women where they transported us. At that point, the door was open, a women told me to get naked and there was a pretty particular search of my genital organs, the door being opened there were male officers that were in the hall who could very easily see us. A number of people felt, very, very uncomfortable with this situation.

I went to court, I had the opportunity to go to court on Monday night, pretty quickly. I was finally accused of conspiracy to commit a criminal act. The conditions of my release are to not participate in any demonstration until July 5, in other words, I couldn’t participate in the demonstrations that took place throughout the week and the ones coming up, I think tomorrow. So I haven’t had the opportunity to organize, participate in or even encourage any demonstrations. Throughout all this what I can tell you is that there was a sense of injustice and humiliation that always accompanied us because we always, because we said listen, I’m there for the right to abortion, I walked on the streets, I didn’t do anything wrong and here we are and we are being treated as if we are already guilty, as if we already did something wrong when it is false.

The wait made us really crazy and everyone cracked, everyone ended up cracking and emotionally exploding a little in relation to this. I would say the francophone question, many have asked us if the francophones were treated differently, well I can tell you that yes. On one hand we were given the occasion to be with police from the city of Montreal only during our arrest, people who could explain to us what was happening. After that, we didn’t have the opportunity to be in direct contact with people that were francophone, it happened intermittently when, when as I said earlier there was a pretty regular rotation of police, so sometimes we were able to speak to one who spoke French. But this happened very, I would say very rarely.

I will give you an example. There was a woman in our cell who had a mental health problem, she had, she was borderline psychotic. She was a woman who worked well when under medication, in fact, and she had to take it at 9am, we indicated to the police that she should take her medication for 9am. There was nothing done for her. At a point she had a crises and she was throwing herself at the walls. We asked people that she see, that she have access to her medication, it was not possible. We took her to see a doctor that spoke.. in fact, not even a doctor, it was a doctor’s aide, I would say. (Invention) Paramedic. Paramedic, thank you Amir. And this person only spoke English so he took her pressure, her temperature and I don’t know what else and they saw that she was healthy and returned her to her cell, outright finally. Finally well she had another crises because well, this woman was under medication there, so when it got to four hours that she had’t had her medication, it didn’t work anymore, so at that moment they took her to the hospital. It was a pretty important stress for her to be brought to the hospital, accompanied always by people who spoke English. She wasn’t able to express what her needs were and what her ailment was. Finally, at the hospital they gave her exactly medication that she was taking already.

So it’s sure that also I had the opportunity to speak with people who were arrested on the street, saying that they spoke French and they had knapsacks and so they were suspect, just simply, really in a very, very random way francophone people were arrested.

At the moment, at the first moment when I was able to meet a judge, it was on evening and the judge said that it was necessary given that we had detention conditions that were abominable, so that we could sleep a night. What was done was that two groups of people left to a detention centre for women. The first group got to sleep in beds for a few hours, the second group, we left from our prison at 3am. At the moment we arrived at the detention centre for women, we had to fill out many, many documents, with our names, our addresses, if we had suicidal ideas, if we had a criminal record, several of those types of things. Nobody spoke French at that moment. I had the opportunity, given that I speak English to do the translation for my colleagues during close to one and a half hours, two hours, between 4 o’clock in the morning and 6 o’clock in the morning. I never had the opportunity to sleep during that time, during the whole night. And, naturally it was very beneficial that I be able to do the translation for my colleagues because if not, they wouldn’t have had access essentially someone that speaks French. So discrimination of Francophones was very present due to the fact that, despite that these are federal instances in our beautiful bilingual Canada, I don’t believe it anymore, it was never possible for us really to have the same services as Anglophone people. To end. To end, it is a grave injustice that we (?).

I can’t make out the last word neither.

Again, Thank you very much, Vanessa for having the patience to provide this transcript.

I can’t say for sure that French Quebec detainees were discriminated upon more than the rest of them. I would say that their gate keepers more than likely would probably have attempted more games given the language disadvantage of many of them.

As a whole, though, after reading many of the detainee accounts, young Emilie  did suffer many of the same indignities the other detainees did. Indignities even common criminals when arrested don’t even suffer. Common criminals when in holding even have unlimited access to a toilet, they do get a meal, they get water and yes, if needed, medical attention.  If they are already on meds; i.e an athsmatic who has puffers on them, they’re not supposed to be denied those puffers. Same for a diabetic or hypoglycemic who needs to eat regularly.

Tonight, I will be headed to a planning meeting for a rally to be held this Saturday on July 10, 2010.  This must never happen again.