Quebec City police force still 'tolerates' thin-blue-line patch

The thin blue line — a symbol that's been banned by the RCMP and some municipal police forces — is once again stirring up controversy in Quebec, after officers in Quebec City were seen wearing the patches on their uniforms at recent protests against pandemic measures.

A spokesperson for the Service de Police de la Ville de Québec (SPVQ) told CBC the image of a thin blue line running through a Canadian flag represents support for law enforcement and the role of police in protecting the public from criminals, and it commemorates officers who died on duty.

But many who have taken to the streets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and other civil rights activists don't see the thin blue line that way. 

"It seems over time it has been appropriated by certain extremist elements in society to convey something else," said Fo Niemi, director of Montreal's Center for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR). "Therefore, it can become a very divisive symbol, especially vis-à-vis the very diverse population that we are."

"When a symbol is worn on the police uniform, one has to ask the question, is it an integral part of the police uniform? Is it a symbol of the police department … of what police services should convey?" Niemi asked.

"Uniforms need to convey political neutrality and social cohesion."

In Montreal, officers assigned to a recent demonstration against pandemic measures and a counter-protest in Jarry Park were also seen wearing thin-blue-line patches.

Jenny Cartwright, an artist, social activist and documentary filmmaker, tweeted several photos, circling the patches in pink ink.

Marlihan Lopez, a Black feminist activist and a self-described police abolitionist, said she sees police wearing the thin-blue-line symbol as an act of intimidation and provocation.

She takes issue with the argument made by police brotherhoods in Quebec that the badge was around in the province before the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S., and therefore can't be considered racist.

"State violence by police is something that occurred way before George Floyd," she said. "To accept these symbols for us is to normalize that state violence on our communities as it manifests through policing and surveillance."

Lopez sees a similarity between the thin-blue-line badge and the controversial red bands worn by some Sûreté du Québec (SQ) officers in the wake of a sexual abuse scandal involving police in Val-d'Or, Que., that rocked the province in 2015. 

After six SQ officers were suspended while allegations that they'd been involved in the sexual and physical assault of Indigenous women were investigated, some of their colleagues wore red arm bands emblazoned with the number of the Val-d'Or detachment.

Those arm bands, worn as a show of solidarity with the disgraced officers, are no different than the thin-blue-line patch, Lopez said.