Montreal Pots and Pans Video Of Protest Against Bill 78
Goes Viral

By Michael Bolen
The Huffington Post Canada
May 25, 2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/25/montreal-pots-and-pans-video-bill-78_n_1546694.html?ref=email_share

[Plus sideshow]

Pots And Pans Video

A video of the pots and pans protest against Bill 78 in
Montreal posted on Vimeo is going viral. (Vimeo)

http://vimeo.com/42848523

A video of protesters banging pots and pans on Quebec
streets is going viral on social networks.

Posted on Friday afternoon, the beautiful black and
white film shows protesters of all ages taking to the
streets to protest the emergency law Bill 78. The Vimeo
video quickly began showing up all over Twitter and
Facebook.

Bill 78 is being called a draconian attempt to quell
massive student protests that have taken over Quebec
streets for more than 100 days. The bill limits the
ability to protest by requiring groups to get police
approval for demonstrations and restricting where they
can take place, among other provisions.

People took up the percussive protest Thursday night in
several towns and cities including Sorel, Longueuil,
Chambly, Repentigny, Trois-Rivieres and even in Abitibi
-- several hundred kilometres away from the hot spot of
Montreal.

They were still loudest in Montreal, where a chorus of
metallic clanks rang out in neighbourhoods around the
city, spilling into the main demonstrations and
sounding like aluminum symphonies.

The pots-and-pans protest has its roots in Chile, where
people have used it for years as an effective, peaceful
tool to express civil disobedience. The noisy
cacerolazo tradition actually predates the Pinochet
regime in Chile, but has endured there and spread to
other countries as a method of showing popular
defiance.

Thursday's protest in Montreal was immediately declared
illegal by police, who said it violated a municipal
bylaw because they hadn't been informed of the route.
They allowed it to continue as long as it remained
peaceful.

Usually the nightly street demonstrations, which have
gone on for a month, have a couple of vigorous drummers
to speed them along their route. At the very least,
someone clangs a cow bell.

But in the last few days, the pots and pans protest --
dubbed the casseroles by observers -- have acted like
an alarm clock for the regular evening march, sounding
at 8 p.m. on the nose in advance of the march's start.

With files from The Canadian Press.

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