OTL Blog

Montreal hosts North America’s oldest St. Patrick’s Day parade, which started officially in 1817, even though its roots go back as far as 1759.  With such an ancient history by Canadian standards, many assume that the parade is steeped in authenticity. After witnessing the parade this year, however, many viewers were left with the impression that the event was mostly a military and police parade and with lots of corporate advertising and very little trace of Irish authenticity, history or meaningful celebration.

Usually scheduled on the Sunday closest to March 17, St. Patrick’s Day proper, this year the parade was moved up a week to Sunday the 22nd, allegedly in hopes of having better weather. There is speculation that parade organizers were concerned about spillover into the parade from last Sunday’s anti-police brutality demonstration, which could have created a dangerous situation. Police firing tear gas into the parade crowd and clashing violently with demonstrators could easily have provoked a riot. Organizers also surprised the public by banning Falun Dafa activists from the parade despite their marching presence for over 5 years. Parade spokesperson Gerald Showers attempted to explain the rationale behind the ban by suggesting The Falun Gong practitioners “have a hard time with instructions,” and that “we’ve asked them repeatedly to stop giving out pamphlets that depict torture and some of the reasons why they’re in the parade.” Gerald Showers, representing the United Irish Societies of Montreal, claimed: “We have very clear rules about parade conduct, and people who don’t adhere to the rules aren’t asked back…The parade is a celebration, not a demonstration.”

Replacing the Falun Dafa activists accused of holding a “demonstration” against oppression was a demonstration of military power. After giving the activists the boot, Gerald Showers boasted of his replacement “celebration”:

“Between 12:50 and 1:10 p.m. two CF-18 fighter jets…from CFB Bagotville will fly about four fly-pasts from west to east (over the parade)…From 1:20 p.m. to 1:40 p.m. we’ll have three CH-146 Griffon helicopters doing four fly-pasts.”

It was difficult to understand how the United Irish Societies chose to differentiate between “demonstration” and “celebration”; while activists accused of “demonstrating” were banned, the massive military presence was deemed a “celebration,” despite the fact that the British imperialist history of these forces is clearly at odds with the Irish experience. Indeed, because Canada was colonized and created by Great Britain and because Canada’s head of state is still the Queen of England, these military units are essentially cut from the same cloth as the oppressive British forces that provoked historical Irish tragedies such as the Great Famine and Northern Ireland’s Troubles.

The latest edition of the St. patrick’s Day parade, its 185th, began with a phalanx of decidedly non-Irish security forces marching, such as the Montreal Police, RCMP, and Canadian military.

Indeed, the majority of the parade involved military units, secret societies and corporations marching, advertising both violent warfare and consumer products. The most shocking reality advertisement was by the clothing store L’Equipeur, who had people carry their billboards at regular intervals throughout the parade, much like a repetitive commercial on TV (albeit one that cannot be muted or blocked out)! L’Equipeur and parent company Mark’s Work Warehouse certainly deserve to be boycotted en masse for polluting the parade with their corporate spam. Many other corporate advertisements played prominently throughout the parade, and in contrast to the life-affirming, yet banned Falun Gong practitioners, one reality ad appeared for the francophone Urgel Bourgie funeral home.

As though Gerald Showers’ corporate “celebration” wasn’t enough already, true to his word, military helicopters and fighter jets flew past overhead in an intimidating performance, drowning out all sounds of human celebration with their noise pollution.

Following the parade, police became more heavy-handed than usual. After arresting 221 people last Sunday, the Montreal police warned parade-goers against celebrating too heartily with a posting on the official parade site:

“1. Civil behaviour toward all event participants is expected. 2. Montreal’s public assets and urban furniture belong to the entire population: please treat them with respect. 3. The consumption of alcohol is strictly prohibited on public roads.”

The police made good on their threats to rain on the parade and arrested 10 celebrants, mostly for “public drunkenness” according to Montreal police Constable Raphaël Bergeron. Following the parade, revellers headed to the nearby bars on Crescent, Bishop and Mackay Streets. There are reports that around 4:30 p.m., after being provoked by police over 300 revellers spilled over into the parking lot between Crescent and Bishop. There was a standoff, and police dispersed the crowd with a group of about 20 officers.

A group of six police officers on bicycles were also seen arresting two young men, with one officer screaming, “he’s the one,” while another officer grabbed a man who was heading into the Pharmaprix on the corner of Ste. Catherine and Guy St. The man’s head was slammed into the glass window of the store as police handcuffed him, and then dragged him away into a police van.

Culturally-speaking, this parade demonstrated firstly how weak, diluted, and scattered Irish-Canadian culture has become, and secondly, how easy it is for oppressive powers like corporations and military units to co-opt and profit from vulnerable cultures. The sad thing is that until Montrealers of Irish heritage start standing up for their culture, their culture will continue to erode and deteriorate only to be replaced with a parasitic and ersatz corporate culture where profit and marketing takes precedence over real Irish heritage.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 7:00 am and is filed under Community issues, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.