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The War Measures act. This law was passed to give the federal government power to maintain security and order during war or invasion, allowing a mass arrest of hundreds of suspected FLQ members and sympathizers which was a major violation in human rights.

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The October Crisis
A radical Quebec group raises the stakes on separation and Ottawa invokes the War Measures Act

In the fall of 1970, Canada was plunged into its worst crisis since the Second World War when a radical Quebec group raised the stakes on separatism.

In October 1970, the Quebec government requested the assistance of the Canadian Armed Forces to help protect politicians and important buildings during the October Crisis. Pictured here, children watching soldiers (The Gazette and National Archives of Canada, PA-129833)

On the morning of October 5, 1970, four men posing as deliverymen kidnapped British trade commissioner James Richard Cross from his plush Montreal residence.

Cross was in the hands of Quebec's most radical separatist group, the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ). Since 1963, the FLQ had been involved in over 200 bombings in Quebec. Now the self-described revolutionary movement was changing tactics.

The kidnappers threatened to kill Cross unless the government released 23 prison inmates charged with crimes committed in the name of the Front. The FLQ insisted these people were political prisoners. They also wanted their manifesto to be read on national television.

At first, both the federal and provincial governments - led by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Premier Robert Bourassa - downplayed the kidnapping. The Quebec government said it was open to negotiate with the FLQ and even allowed the group's staunchly separatist manifesto to be read on Radio-Canada.

"We have had enough of promises of work and prosperity," the manifesto read. "When in fact we will always be the diligent servants and bootlickers of the big shots ... we will be slaves until Quebecers, all of us, have used every means, including dynamite and guns, to drive out these big bosses of the economy and of politics, who will stoop to any action, however base, the better to screw us ..."

Despite some government concessions, the crisis escalated. Five days after the Cross kidnapping, the FLQ struck again kidnapping Pierre Laporte, the Quebec minister of labour and the government's senior Cabinet minister.

The news sent ripples of panic through the public and gave the impression that the FLQ was a large, powerful organization. The kidnapping put tremendous pressure on the young premier who turned to Ottawa for help.

The federal government sent in the army to protect politicians and important buildings. For Pierre Trudeau, a lifelong champion of individual rights, it was a defining moment. In one exchange with CBC reporter Tim Rafe, Trudeau displayed an iron resolve.

On October 16, 1970, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked The War Measures Act after a radical Quebec separatist group kidnapped British trade commissioner James Richard Cross and Quebec minister of labour Pierre Laporte. Pictured here Trudeau making a statement after the release James Cross, December 1970. (National Archives of Canada, PA-110806)

Reporter: "Sir what is it with all these men with guns around here?"

Trudeau: " There's a lot of bleeding hearts around who don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is 'go ahead and bleed' but it's more important to keep law and order in this society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of..."

Reporter: "At what cost? How far would you go? To what extent?"

Trudeau: "Well, just watch me."

As the country watched, events continued to unfold in Quebec. On October 15, three thousand people gathered at Paul Sauvé Arena to show support for the FLQ's separatist ideas. The FLQ's lawyer, Robert Lemieux, fired them up.

"We're going to organize, choose our ground, and WE WILL VANQUISH."

All signs indicated that the FLQ was a powerful force in Quebec. Bourassa and Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau urged Ottawa to invoke the War Measures Act.

"What else can I do?" Bourassa reportedly told a colleague. "I personally know a great number of the people who will be arrested ... I know that my political career is over. The economic recovery, the foreign investment, the 100,000 new jobs, all that has just gone up in smoke."

On October 16, Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, which suspended basic civil rights and liberties. It allowed police searches and arrests without warrants, and prolonged detentions without charges and without the right to see a lawyer. It was the first time in Canadian history the Act was used during peacetime.

That morning the police arrested 405 people including Quebec singer Pauline Julien.

"They didn't ask us anything," Julien remembered. "I refused to stay in the living-room during their search. I told them: You are in my house, I'm going with you everywhere. They didn't behave that badly, they weren't as brutal as I have head they were elsewhere."

Julien's partner, leftist journalist Gérald Godin, was also arrested.

"Why was I in jail?," said Godin. "If only they had questioned me, I might have had an inkling. What had I said? What had I written or published?"

Some of those arrested under the War Measures Act were kept behind bars for 21 days - the full period allowed under the Act - but most were released after a few hours without being charged. Julien and Godin were detained for eight days, then released without charges.

The day after the first arrests, the tide turned for the FLQ. On the night of October 17, an FLQ communiqué led police to a car parked near St. Hubert airport. In the trunk was the body of Pierre Laporte. He had been strangled to death.

It was the first political assassination in Canada since the murder of Thomas d'Arcy McGee 102 years earlier. Laporte's death would mark the beginning of the end of the FLQ as sympathy abruptly shifted away from the group.

On November 6, Bernard Lortie was arrested when the police raided the hiding place of the Laporte kidnappers. Three members escaped the raid but were captured in late December. Paul Rose and Francis Simard received life sentences for murder. Bernard Lortie was sentenced to 20 years in jail for kidnapping. Jacques Rose was convicted of being an accessory after the fact and sentenced to eight years in jail.

After two months of captivity, James Cross was released as part of a deal, which allowed five kidnappers to leave Canada. Over the years, all of the exiled FLQ members returned to Canada to face trial. They were all convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to jail terms. A sixth Cross kidnapper remained in Montreal and was arrested in July 1980 and convicted of kidnapping.

Several years later, after extensive investigation, it became apparent that the FLQ was not the major paramilitary organization many had believed. It was an informal group, organized in small, autonomous cells, whose members dreamed of a separate and socialist Quebec. At the time of the October Crisis, the group had no more than thirty-five members.

The FLQ ceased activities in 1971.

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The October Crisis A radical Quebec group raises the stakes on separation and Ottawa invokes the War Measures Act In the fall of 1970, Canada was plunged into its worst crisis since the Second World War when a radical Quebec group raised the stakes on separatism.

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The Kingston Penitentiary riot. The riot was run by the prisons barber Billy Knight, resulting in 2 deaths and the destruction of most of the prison. The riot lasted 4 days, 6 officers being held hostage but were eventually released unharmed.

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DEADLY PRISON RIOT INVESTIGATION (1971) | W5 VAULT

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The Summit Series. The Summit Series was an eight game hockey series between Canada and the Soviet Union. It was the first international hockey game for Canada, who ended up winning 7-3.

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Crocodile Rock by Elton John. Even though he had been performing for 2-3 years at this point, Crocodile Rock had gotten him his first #1 single and topped the charts in both the U.S and Canada.

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Lego. Though the first Lego sets came out in the 1940's, Lego became extremely popular in 1974 due to the "Family sets" being released with figures that had posable arms, they quickly became a best seller in stores.

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The CN Tower. The building of the tower had started in 1973, but finally finished in early April of 1975, opening to the public for the first time on June 26, 1976.

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Tower construction crews moved in on February 6, 1973, and started to remove over 56 metric tonnes of earth and shale for the foundation. Once the foundation was ready, work began on the CN Tower's 335-metre (1,100-foot) concrete shaft, a hexagonal core with three curved support arms.

To produce the CN Tower's tapered contour, construction crews poured concrete into a massive mold known as a slipform. As the concrete hardened, the slipform, supported by a ring of climbing jacks powered by hydraulic pressure, moved upwards, gradually decreasing in size to impart the curve in Tower.

By February 1974, the Tower was already the tallest structure in Canada. In August 1974, work began on the seven-storey sphere that would eventually house the observation decks and the revolving 360 Restaurant.

Topping it off

The CN Tower approached completion in March 1975, when Olga, the giant Sikorsky helicopter, flew into the city to lift the 39 pieces of the antenna into place. The CN Tower was finished on April 2, 1975, opening to the public on June 26, 1976. At 553 metres (1,815 feet), it would remain the tallest freestanding structure in the world until surpassed by Dubai's Burj Khalifa in 2009.

In 1995, Canadian National sold the CN Tower to the Canada Lands Company, a federal Crown corporation specializing in attractions of national interest. It was then that the tower truly became Canada's National Tower-both in name and deed.

Today, the CN Tower is the centre of telecommunications for Toronto, serving more than 17 Canadian television and FM radio stations; we're also the workplace of more than 500 people throughout the year, and-of course-an internationally renowned tourism destination, welcoming more than two million visitors each year.

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Timbits. An equivalent to American "donut holes" sold at Tim Hortons, being released in April of 1976. up until 2009, the available flavours include chocolate glazed, jelly filled, honey dip and old fashion plain or dip.

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The murder of Emanuel Jaques. Emanuel worked as a shoeshine boy on the then Yonge Street strip in Toronto. He would be lured into an apartment above the Charlies Angels massage parlour with the promise of $35 for helping move photography equipment. Emanuel would be missing for a handful of days before a sex worker contacted gay activist George Hislop and admitted to the murder.

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The middle week of July 1977 had been scorching with the mercury hitting the mid-30s in Toronto.

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By the month's final week, the embers had cooled and temperatures were in the more comfortable low-20s range. Teen idol Shawn Cassidy sat atop the 1050 Chum Chart with Da Doo Run Run. Star Wars - released in May - was still packing theatres.

There was no Internet, smartphones or multi-channel universe.

Now, on July 28, 1977, no one could imagine that by dusk, the city would be changed forever. A cliche to be sure but in this instance, appropriate.

Thursday marks the 45th anniversary of the horrifying sex murder of 12-year-old shoeshine boy Emanuel Jaques above the Charlie's Angels massage parlour on a stretch of Yonge St. then saturated in neon slime.

Decades after that terrible fact, the details are well known. Cops got the guys who did it. They're dead or in the slammer. One year and two weeks earlier, Parliament had just ditched the death penalty once and for all.

A year later, the public were calling for the noose to be brought back. Emanuel's killers were poster boys for the death penalty and even the most ardent abolishionist could agree that, yeah, maybe these monsters should swing.

The torment and horrors that child must have endured during the final hours of his short life are unbearable to contemplate.

We do know that the child of poor Portuguese immigrants would never celebrate another birthday, never graduate, marry or have a family with children of his own. He would be 58 years old this October.

Yet Emanuel lives on.

Every time a child is sexually assaulted or murdered in this country, the words "shoeshine boy murder" reemerge in our collective consciousness.

We went through it again in the 1980s with the murders of Sharin Morningstar Keenan, Alison Parrot, Christine Jessop and the disappearance of Nicole Morin. in subsequent years, there would be Tori Stafford and Holly Jones to break our hearts anew.

Play Video

Following the slaying of Emanuel, the city embarked on a big clean-up of the festering boil that was the Yonge St. strip. The rub joints were gone, the porn shops diminished and - poof! - along came Starbucks and Shoppers Drug Mart in their gentrified glory.

But the type of men who murdered Emanuel turned to the shadows and embraced that godsend of pedophiles the world over, the Internet.

On that dark day in 1977, the gauzy illusions and certainties that children had about their lives were obliterated. The smiles were replaced by fear.

1. HUNTER EXCLUSIVE: Shoeshine boy killer Saul Betesh denied in parole bid

2. EXCLUSIVE: Emanuel Jaques witness recalls 'feral' and 'twisted' killer Saul Betesh

3. Shoeshine boy killer rejected for escorted day passes

No longer were good parents, safe surroundings and stable, happy lives enough of a praetorian guard for our young lives. We had no idea before Emanuel's tragic death but we had eternally been in danger.

Now, there could be no doubt we lived in a world fraught with unspeakable horrors.

Over the years I've written a number of stories about the murder of that unfortunate little boy. I have talked to people who knew him and his killers.

I did a story about his killer, Saul Betesh, looking for love on a prisoner hook-up website. It remains endlessly heartbreaking.

Thursday's forecast is calling for showers. That is fitting.

Perhaps spare a thought for Emanuel Jaques as you make your way through the weeping rain.
bhunter@postmedia.com @HunterTOSun

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HUNTER: Murder of shoeshine boy Emanuel Jaques instilled terror

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The middle week of July 1977 had been scorching with the mercury hitting the mid-30s in Toronto.

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Beaver tails. At a fair in Killaloe, Pam and Grant Hooker sold pastries called "Beaver Tails" made from Pams grandmothers recipe, starting to sell these pastries in 2 stores in Ottawa before moving to Quebec where the company would quickly expand both in Canada and elsewhere.

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Mississauga train derailing. A CP Rail freight train was carrying 106 cars that each carried various chemicals and explosives. In the 33rd car, heat began to build up due to an improperly lubricated journal bearing on one of its wheels. Eventually, the friction burned through the axle and bearing, causing the wheel to fall off completely. Once the wheel had fallen off, the damaged undercarriage fell off, causing the rest of the train to derail which resulted in multiple cars bursting into flames. Due to the chemicals spilling into the air, a massive explosion occured, but there was thankfully no injuries.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Penitentiary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summit_Series

https://eisenhowerlibrary.org/billboards-hot-100-of-1973-crocodile-rock/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lego

https://www.cntower.ca/history#:~:text=The%20CN%20Tower%20was%20finished,public%20on%20June%2026%2C%201976.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbits

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Emanuel_Jaques

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/beaver-tails#:~:text=In%201978%2C%20at%20a%20community,well%20as%20in%20other%20countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Mississauga_train_derailment

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War Measures Act (Plain-Language Summary)

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The War Measures Act was a federal law. It was passed by Parliament on 22 August 1914. The Act gave the federal government broad powers to maintain security and...