Word: ottawas
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Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's response was drastic. Promising to "root out the cancer of an armed revolutionary movement," he rejected the demands, called out troops to patrol Ottawa, the capital, and Quebec Province, and finally invoked emergency police powers under Canada's 1914 War Measures Act, which had never before been used in time of peace. If Trudeau was tough, the F.L.Q. terrorists were barbaric. They strangled Laporte, apparently by twisting a thin gold chain he wore around his neck, then stuffed his body in the trunk...
...murder of the 49-year-old Laporte, like Trudeau a French-Canadian and an opponent of the Quebec separatist movement, stunned the nation. Mail and phone calls flooding into Ottawa ran 97% in favor of the Prime Minister's tough stance. Some 2,000 Canadians gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to sing the national anthem, O Canada; the House of Commons approved the invocation of the War Measures Act by an overwhelming 190-16 margin...
During the week, Trudeau's government repeatedly cited three reasons for its tough action, and each seemed to have at least some validity. First, Ottawa felt it had to counter what one official called "an erosion of public opinion" in Quebec, whose French-Canadian population might have embraced the separatist creed more warmly than ever had the government wavered in the face of the F.L.Q. challenge; that fear was heightened by the fact that Montreal is holding municipal elections this week. Second, Ottawa wanted to reassert the principle of federalism as strongly as possible. Finally, there was the F.L.Q. itself...
Canada and Uruguay have moved decisively, but within constitutional limits, knowing full well that to scrap the constitution à la Brazil would only play into the terrorists' hands by inviting real disorders. In Ottawa, Trudeau's Cabinet is already drawing up new laws to replace the War Measures Act, so as to permit more effective action against civil disorders. With its May 1968 upheaval in mind, France has beefed up its police force, and enacted a tough new anti-demonstration measure known as the "anti-wrecker's law." Under the law, police can arrest anyone standing in sight...
...kidnapping threw Montreal into a panic. From Ottawa, External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp ordered armed guards posted at all foreign embassies and consulates; Canadian officials and prominent businessmen began themselves to live at home and travel only under heavy protection. After the passage of several "deadlines" for the meeting of the demands, Montreal radio broadcast the FLQ manifesto; but negotiations between the government and the FLQ's representative Robert Lemieux never got underway, and on the evening of October 10, the Chernier cell of the FLQ seized "the Minister of Unemployment and Exploitation," Laporte...