Montreal adopts bylaw banning insults against police, municipal employees

clarionbell

I know that speech protections are not exactly maximalist in Canada, but surely this can't be compatible with the charter?

montroser

I predict this will go badly. I would not describe the good people of Montreal as a "compliant" lot. You can't legislate respect.

alistairSH

Assault was already illegal. So, this is to also ban calling the police names? Already illegal: "I'm going to kick your ass" Now illegal: "You're a poopy head"

redanddead

Unpopular distraction, elections are Oct 5th

giarc

I think these are the key sentences in that article (below). This bylaw is probably targeted toward citizens that come in and berate staff because they find out they have an unpaid parking ticket from 2 years ago that they have to pay before renewing their license (for example). >The new Montreal bylaw would ban insults, harassment, threats, abuse and intimidation, as well as offensive and aggressive behaviour. >It also includes provisions saying city employees could refuse to provide services to someone who misbehaves. However, the bylaw doesn't define what could be construed as an insult.

guyzero

Hostie d'tabarnak, flic.

lokar

This kind of thing is concerning, but I think there is a place for rules like this. You already see this in many public businesses. Front line workers should not have to endure abuse from the public. But, the standard for sworn officers should be much higher.

dlcarrier

Is there an extra harsh punishment, if the insults aren't in French?

heisgone

For context, police gained support for this bylaw following this video. The guy posted the video of himself of calling an office a whore on socia media. The fact the officer was so polite and couldn't do anything about it made people furious. Of course, there is real risk of abuse of this law but that's the context. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9YMLpiDPWs

petcat

Something similar was attempted in Houston in the 1980s and the US Supreme Court struck it down as a clear 1st Amendment violation [1] > The Constitution does not allow such speech to be made a crime. The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/482/451

throwfaraway135

I'm pro people having dignity in their jobs, but considering how unnecessarily complex and sometimes even hostile modern bureaucracy is this is going to remove one feedback mechanism that may have been globally good.

maerF0x0

There needs to be tit-for-tat fixes to the way the public and police interact. If we cannot say mean things under extreme duress, then they shouldn't be allowed to lie/mislead to extract evidence. (The inverse is illegal afaik -- to lie to an officer)

projektfu

It's pretty interesting how many comments ask questions that were asked by the article. Not surprising, as I also didn't read the article before reading the comments. But it is a well-written news article.

pluc

Quotes from the mayor (in French) who reassures us all that we can still flip off officers, that law will never be abused. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2026-09-21...

pfdietz

I never cease to be grateful for the First Amendment.

bgorman

As western societies have become more authoritarian, governments are resorting to banning even the most minor types of resistance. For example, when going through airport security in the UK and US you will see signs warning that insulting security officers is a criminal offense. As laws become more senseless and needlessly punitive, this is a disappointing development. Unfortunately, I suspect eventually this strategy of "containment" of dissent will eventually lead to outbursts of violence since less extreme forms of dissent are not tolerated anyway.

realo

This is likely the consequence of that : https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/montreal-police-mayo... The police woman is amazingly patient.

legitster

> However, she said incidents of inappropriate behaviour have increased dramatically and are harming city employees, and making it more difficult to recruit new employees. > "The thousands of women and men who work every day to serve Montreal have the right to protection from their employer, which is us." So basically it was pushed through despite being unpopular or unfinished because they have legitimate employment problems in government right now. There's erosion of trust in the government, and the solution will further erode trust. Unfortunately this is not an exclusive problem to Canada right now.

crmd

Reasonable minds can disagree on a citizen’s right to speak freely versus his neighbor’s right to not have their feelings hurt by words, but I can’t fathom a reasonable argument why such a protection should only apply to government workers and the police.

simontlbt

At least we still have a functioning democracy over here. We can still complain about this specific issue if it matters to us.