Another night, and city's calm shatters again

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Graham Hughes / The Canadian Press Protesters bang on pots and pans Thursday night. (CP)

MONTREAL -- When Montrealers wake up these days, the morning calm of the city streets can make the previous night seem like a distant dream.

Gone are the perpetual facts of life for anyone near the city centre each night: the rumble of low-hovering helicopters, the makeshift barricades, the riot police, the taunts and chants from the tide of thousands of marching protesters.

The suburbs remain quiet. Even the downtown core returns to the regular rhythm of most other urban centres -- at least for another 12 hours.

People seeing sensational images from Montreal, now being beamed on newscasts around the world, are witnessing only one small sliver from a day in the life of a city in crisis.

On the morning subway commute, bleary-eyed Montrealers flip through the free dailies answering questions they might be asking about the previous night's events: How many were arrested last night? How many windows were broken?

Only a small minority of morning metro commuters will be wearing the emblematic red patch of the student movement.

Around noon, groups of co-workers might head out for lunch and catch the latest details of the strike from a 24-hour news channel.

They will make quips about the government minister seen answering reporters' questions. They will do the same during a competing news conferences from the student groups blasting Premier Jean Charest and the police. The day is still young.

In the afternoon, there is water-cooler talk about the lighter side of the protests. Some might be idle gossip about the key players -- such as who's better-looking: the mild-mannered Léo Bureau-Blouin, head of the college students' association? Or the more strident Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, spokeswoman for the hardline student group C.L.A.S.S.E.?

Or, as someone tweeted Thursday: "You know the conflict has gone on too long when you notice that Bureau-Blouin got a haircut."

As the day drags on, the mood changes.

A bartender might see a thinner-than-usual happy-hour crowd and wonder what's in store for the coming festival season that in most years motors Montreal's summer economy.

Many commuters have been desperate to avoid the downtown core lately. By 8:30 p.m., it will be taken over by the nightly student march, which begins in the same park every night and whose unpredictable path winds onto the same streets, but at different times, in a different order.

Patrons in bars and restaurants might applaud as the march makes its way past. The process can last more than 15 minutes. While some stand to applaud, others will exchange furtive glances or stare into their plates and quietly mutter.

Around dinner tables some parents will argue with children. Even friends will debate each other fiercely, on Facebook and Twitter, or over beers on one of Montreal's many restaurant patios.

"Are you a red, green or white?" is one common question, referring to the colours that represent various positions on the strike.

Throughout the dispute, protesters have thought up some novel tactics.

The latest innovation, borrowed mainly from protests in the Spanish-speaking world, has been to organize noisy pot-banging processions in Montreal's residential areas.

It has been dubbed the casserole-dish protest -- from the Spanish "cacerolzados," made popular in Chile in the 1970s.

The air in the downtown core, and the neighbourhoods near it, will vibrate from the sound of police and media helicopters rumbling so noisily some people say they can't sleep.

Eventually the gas clears. The broken glass is swept off sidewalks. The helicopters fly away.

And Montreal gets ready to do it all over again.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 26, 2012 A23