It started out as yet another ordinary coverage of another demo at a corner where I had covered three others in the past months. It was billed as âLa Marche des Insoumisâ the âMarch of the Rebellious.â Some 10,000 Montrealers turned out last Saturday to demonstrate against the masking of young children in schools and against the continuation of the lockdown. Clearly at least half had other agendas, but it was a legal demonstration well advertised weeks in advance.
It had been called for 1pm on a sunny, but bitingly cold day. I arrived early to go to my usual spot to film. It was a three foot high concrete bench at the southeast corner of Sherbrooke and McGill College. The bench was some 30 feet from where the marchers were gathering.