Postscript: Police pressure tactics set poor example

CTV Montreal: Police officers setting poor example In this week’s Postscript, Executive producer Barry Wilson takes aim at police officers and their pressure tactics.

With all due respect, Montreal’s police officers look like clowns.

I am not sure what is upsetting me more, the darling pinks and yellows or the camouflage pants, which are worn by police in tin pot dictatorships where citizens have no rights and live in fear of persecution and prosecution.

What kind of message does this send to new immigrants to Canada, who fled countries where camouflaged police would show up in the middle of the night?

A police officer is supposed to represent a society that believes in rule of law and respect for fundamental rights. If a citizen in need or in trouble, they need reassurance. I am not sure a police officer responding in combat pants and a red union ball cap is what is required.

Besides, they look really silly. But it goes further than that.

The larger question is who is policing the police, and that raises troubling questions. Not so long ago, police stood by while fires were set outside city hall. I mean, who are you going call? The cops are not going to start arresting other cops.

A couple of stickers marking publicly-owned cruisers not enough? Just plaster the whole damn thing, that’s something I want the people sworn to protect me to do.

Or how about Laval police cowboys tearing through mud at a construction site to dirty their patrol cars. Is this the professionalism we expect and demand?

And still, it goes deeper. I don’t believe in coincidence, and it seems highly unlikely that it was coincidence that 100 Montreal officers all decided to call in sick on a sunny Saturday not too long ago.

The scary part is that a spokesman for the coalition representing police, firefighters and thousands of other municipal workers is warning us that if the government doesn’t change Bill 3, things will get worse.

It’s already getting ugly -- at least one company hired to remove those hideous red square stickers from municipal vehicles has complained of intimidation from city blue collar workers. A company vehicle was defaced and vandalized. I certainly hope police take it seriously, but given the nature of the complaint, I wonder how seriously they will take it.

Yes, there should be negotiation. Perhaps there is a better way to make municipal pensions healthy and whole without dinging taxpayers even more. But somebody has to pay.

Police and all the other angry public employees must also realize that honey works better than vinegar. And right now, my guess is that they have little public support and the more they engage in their silly protests, the weaker their case becomes.

But perhaps they all learned lessons from the student protests – that if you bully enough, if you don’t respect the rule of the law, then you win. Maybe not always what you want, but what you need.