Armed Quebec separatist militia only defensive, founder says

It's been more than 40 years since Canada was rocked by then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau's declaration of the War Measures Act, effectively putting the country under marshal law, in response to the killing of a Quebec cabinet minister by members of an FLQ cell.

Hundreds of people were arrested in what some critics then and now considered an over-reaction to the kidnapping of British diplomat Richard Cross and the murder of Pierre Laporte by violent Quebec separatists.

Quebec is a different place today and sovereignty apparently is on the back burner. But the underlying worry hard-core separatists might reignite their movement through violence has resurfaced with reports about the Milice patriotique quebecoise, the Quebec Patriotic Militia.

The National Post and Montreal Gazette describe photos posted on Facebook showing militia members brandishing weapons and saluting in formation.

But founder Serge Provost told the Gazette the group, formed 10 years ago, is perfectly legal.

"If we were doing anything even faintly criminal or wrong, we would have been arrested long ago," Provost said. "We're not hiding anything."

Provost said he was interviewed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and hears regularly from police in Quebec.

"I'm sure we're under surveillance pretty well 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," he said.

Quebec police refused to tell the Gazette whether the group was the subject of any investigation.

Unlike the Front de liberation du Quebec, which was modelled on leftist revolutionary terror cells of the 1960s and '70s, the militia operates in the open. Its website talks about providing support during natural disasters.

But it also warns it will "protect against an aggressor or an invader trying to assimilate the people or steal their riches and those of its territory."

Photos on the site and related Facebook pages show uniformed members carrying assault rifles and getting weapons familiarization instruction.

"The Quebec Patriotic Militia is not a group of fanatical extremists but a group that believes strongly that it is not only possible but necessary for Quebec to achieve independence, and that this will not happen smoothly," Provost writes on the website.

"The realities facing us require us to prepare to defend this legitimate right."

The Post reports Provost is a former army reservist who was arrested in 2003 after anti-English graffiti was spray-painted on the city hall of anglophone suburb Baie d'Urfe.

He was found guilty of possessing explosives - which he told a newspaper at the time he did not intend to use - and barred from possessing firearms until 2013.

Provost said the militia has about 800 active members who pay a $100 annual fee.

Weapons training is conducted at legal gun clubs, he said, but the militia stages training camps where members practise with paintball guns and learn self-defence techniques.

A Montreal shop Provost operates has been refused a licence to sell guns.

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