Something similar was attempted in Houston in the 1980s and the US Supreme Court struck it down as a clear 1st Amendment violation [1]
> The Constitution does not allow such speech to be made a crime. The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.
Canada has a charter of rights and freedoms, but there’s a section that allows governments to override it at will so it’s effectively worthless. And nobody knows that better than Quebec.
Doesn't Quebec have it's own slightly different constitution than the Canada wide one? If I remember right, there's been cases where things aren't allowed per Canada Charter but are allowed per Quebec's own one.
Sure, Quebec has a different constitution than Canada, but this isn't any different than US states having their own constitutions too.
The difference is that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has a "notwithstanding clause" which, when invoked, allows a province to avoid having one of its laws struck down by federal courts even if it goes against some parts of the Canadian Charter (though only applies to some rights, not all).
Eh, "effectively worthless" is a stretch, you still might have to spend political capital and breed resentment when invoking it, there's a reason the notwithstanding is not invoked every time.
I'm aware that Montreal is not part of the United States.
But since this website serves a primarily American audience, I was curious if such a law was possible in the US and I found that it is not. So I posted that.
The current supreme court cited the 1987 Houston ruling in both 2024 and 2025 in decisions that reaffirmed insulting police officers as constitutionally protected speech.
For context, police gained support for this bylaw following this video. The guy posted the video of himself of calling an office a whore on socia media. The fact the officer was so polite and couldn't do anything about it made people furious. Of course, there is real risk of abuse of this law but that's the context.
The entire m/o of Montreal cops is to act as bait to raise money from fines.
If they haven't made enough from fines for a particular time window they all start messing with the traffic to get people to drive over reds in frustration, or get pedestrians to cross against the light. I've seen them leave people at intersections for over five minutes trying to do this.
Never seen it taken to such an extremely obvious level anywhere else, along with their bizarrely over the top body armour for what is in reality a very safe place.
Laws and rights can’t be based on logic and reason alone, starting by the fact that reason alone can’t justify the rationality of its own basis.
And in fact they are never based on logic and reason alone. Everyone has reasons and anything can be framed under some logical system. Admittedly, having a sound logical system is harder and having something like that might seem preferable for the average HN reader. Now, let’s face it, there is not a single juridical corpus that ever met such a high standard of soundness. Really, everyone is free to seek a legal system that can be proved sound on ZFC grounds, good lucks.
This is a hate speech problem, if there's protection to be put in place it's against misogyny, not against insulting police. Why would policewomen be protected against being called a whore but post office workers wouldn't?
That’s sad that there are people ready to throw their low level of self control and rhetorical ability. The officer should be formed and continuously supported (ie. dedicated professional psychological access) to face that kind of reactions.
That’s even sadder that people can’t refrain from supporting such a juridical decision with huge possible side effects in terms of abusive application.
In both cases, that’s some kind of impulsive reactions lacking proper rational counterparts to balance the performed actions. And the second one feels far more problematic at societal level, without dismissing in any way the due empathy for the officer.
I think these are the key sentences in that article (below). This bylaw is probably targeted toward citizens that come in and berate staff because they find out they have an unpaid parking ticket from 2 years ago that they have to pay before renewing their license (for example).
>The new Montreal bylaw would ban insults, harassment, threats, abuse and intimidation, as well as offensive and aggressive behaviour.
>It also includes provisions saying city employees could refuse to provide services to someone who misbehaves. However, the bylaw doesn't define what could be construed as an insult.
> This bylaw is probably targeted toward citizens that come in and berate staff because they find out they have an unpaid parking ticket from 2 years ago that they have to pay before renewing their license (for example).
That's how the (evil) people who support it will construe it. In reality that kind of stuff doesn't really bother employees all that much because it's just part of the job, they knew it going in and everyone agrees those sort of people are out of line.
What bothers employees is when they get heckled for doing (in the course of their job) stuff that just about everyone agrees is wrong, bad, stupid or heavy handed, because most of those employees know deep down they're in the wrong, and having it pointed out and having enough of the public agree with the hecklers in message if not in delivery is a real morale killer. And then your burnt out employees stop giving a shit, do a bad job, get caught on camera enforcing the "you had to lie through your teeth to defend it to begin with" policy in a way that lays bare how f-d up it is. And that's what they're trying to avoid by threatening to fine any peasant who opens their mouth.
Yup. It’s symptomatic of poor governance. Government services not working as good as they should and of course people are pissed. To be frank, the government employees are divas and aren’t effective.
You will find the same behavior across so many different government services — a culture of not taking charge, or like committee thinking. Nothing gets done.
There’s a reason people are pissed.
Idk what the solution is, my brain goes to automated government services, maybe something like Singapore
I don't think it's even that the service that is delivered is unsatisfactory. I think it's that what the government is engaged in actively runs counter to what the people broadly want.
Like when people say we need better sanitation, there's too many tent cities, this needs to be fixed, etc, etc, and the city goes and hires a bunch of employees who then get to work fining residents for trash bin violations no shit they get heckled even if they solve some token amount of the core problem (invariably just enough to let the liars in the comments go to bat for them without the lies being obvious). And you see this kind of thing on damn near every axis of government enforcement and social services these days.
edit: after looking into it, this seems embellished and laymen level of legal understanding that I see everywhere. I wanted to believe though! There seems to be no functional difference for Quebec as a province in Canada compared to others, despite some nuance.
That's available to all provinces, so unless quebec invoked it to bypass all clauses of the charter, it's still accurate to say they're subject to it. Otherwise you can say that ontario isn't bound by the constitution either, because they can theoretically invoke that clause.
Canada only enforces the parts of its Charter the current government feels like, and actively does the opposite of its Charter when the current government feels like it.
> However, she said incidents of inappropriate behaviour have increased dramatically and are harming city employees, and making it more difficult to recruit new employees.
> "The thousands of women and men who work every day to serve Montreal have the right to protection from their employer, which is us."
So basically it was pushed through despite being unpopular or unfinished because they have legitimate employment problems in government right now.
There's erosion of trust in the government, and the solution will further erode trust. Unfortunately this is not an exclusive problem to Canada right now.
As western societies have become more authoritarian, governments are resorting to banning even the most minor types of resistance. For example, when going through airport security in the UK and US you will see signs warning that insulting security officers is a criminal offense. As laws become more senseless and needlessly punitive, this is a disappointing development.
Unfortunately, I suspect eventually this strategy of "containment" of dissent will eventually lead to outbursts of violence since less extreme forms of dissent are not tolerated anyway.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
All over the world, people in power seem to be forgetting this. Unfortunately for us all, it's likely that they'll need a practical reminder before they remember.
There needs to be tit-for-tat fixes to the way the public and police interact.
If we cannot say mean things under extreme duress, then they shouldn't be allowed to lie/mislead to extract evidence. (The inverse is illegal afaik -- to lie to an officer)
Abusing employees in a business is already banned. Harassment by verbal abuse and you can get criminal penalties if it's serious enough. Threats and false allegations are also illegal. There are existing laws for all the serious cases.
Criminalizing an insult is not the same thing at all. This law could get people fined for saying some cop is racist or even things not aimed at a specific person like wearing a fuck the police shirt. And insults are subjective so it's all up to the prosecutor and judge, who might side with the police by default when the evidence is unclear.
It should not be criminalized. The first offense should just be getting kicked out of the DMV office or whatever. If you keep doing it then they should have some way to ban you until you pay a fine, or post a bond or something.
Reasonable minds can disagree on a citizen’s right to speak freely versus his neighbor’s right to not have their feelings hurt by words, but I can’t fathom a reasonable argument why such a protection should only apply to government workers and the police.
I'm pro people having dignity in their jobs, but considering how unnecessarily complex and sometimes even hostile modern bureaucracy is this is going to remove one feedback mechanism that may have been globally good.
"Giving the middle finger, it's not what will give you a ticket," Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada said before the council meeting."
...
"It also includes provisions saying city employees could refuse to provide services to someone who misbehaves. However, the bylaw doesn't define what could be construed as an insult."
----------------
1. If what constitutes an "insult" is left undefined and up to discretion, then this law will be used as an tool for police to fine and harass anyone they don't like at a given moment. It will be abused.
2. This law also bans things, such as threats, that are already covered by the law. If you threaten police, they already have the tools to arrest and charge you. This should not have been included in a law that covers insults and is likely only there to provide camouflage.
I sincerely doubt this law will stand up to its first test in court.
Note that the US constitutional first amendment "freedom of speech and expression" and the Canadian charter's "freedom of expression" are not the same thing.
The Canadian charter explicitly allows for limits based on the (necessarily) vague concept of what a normal democratic society would consider fine, and what they would consider "how about you sit down, and reflect on what you just said because what the hell is wrong with you". And of course, context matters.
Calling a city worker something unpleasant because they refuse to issue a marriage license because of their personal beliefs is not the same as laying into someone because they're slow at their job, and berating a cop for punching a kid during an arrest is nothing like making sailors blush by yelling at a parking cop who's writing you a ticket because it's a minute past what you paid for.
Will some folks try to get fines issued as an obvious overreach? Yep. And that's what courts are for.
It's pretty interesting how many comments ask questions that were asked by the article. Not surprising, as I also didn't read the article before reading the comments. But it is a well-written news article.
Something similar was attempted in Houston in the 1980s and the US Supreme Court struck it down as a clear 1st Amendment violation [1]
> The Constitution does not allow such speech to be made a crime. The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/482/451
Good for them, if only Canada was able to understand that.
Canada has a charter of rights and freedoms, but there’s a section that allows governments to override it at will so it’s effectively worthless. And nobody knows that better than Quebec.
Doesn't Quebec have it's own slightly different constitution than the Canada wide one? If I remember right, there's been cases where things aren't allowed per Canada Charter but are allowed per Quebec's own one.
Sure, Quebec has a different constitution than Canada, but this isn't any different than US states having their own constitutions too.
The difference is that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has a "notwithstanding clause" which, when invoked, allows a province to avoid having one of its laws struck down by federal courts even if it goes against some parts of the Canadian Charter (though only applies to some rights, not all).
In Quebec's version of this law it's legal to insult politicians and police - but only in French.
tabarnak
the sad part is I can't tell if this is true or not
Eh, "effectively worthless" is a stretch, you still might have to spend political capital and breed resentment when invoking it, there's a reason the notwithstanding is not invoked every time.
Canada's first amendment is about a completely different topic :-)
>and the US Supreme Court struck it down as a clear 1st Amendment violation
you do realize that Montreal, Canada is not in the 51st state, correct?
It is possible to read a story and relate it to your own circumstances.
The root comment speaks as if Montreal is a US city, which it is not.
It is valid to remind and affirm that Canada is a different country with a totally different landscape of rights.
I'm aware that Montreal is not part of the United States.
But since this website serves a primarily American audience, I was curious if such a law was possible in the US and I found that it is not. So I posted that.
I really wonder if that would still get struck down by the SCOTUS of 2026. If give it 50/50 odds.
The current supreme court cited the 1987 Houston ruling in both 2024 and 2025 in decisions that reaffirmed insulting police officers as constitutionally protected speech.
So yes, the current SCOTUS has already upheld it.
but no support for constitutionally based protection from bullets, cuz ICE be killing US citizens
but you can legally call them cunts, so that's okay I guess
This is what happens in China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiMLVYK4hEc
Assault was already illegal. So, this is to also ban calling the police names?
Already illegal: "I'm going to kick your ass" Now illegal: "You're a poopy head"
For context, police gained support for this bylaw following this video. The guy posted the video of himself of calling an office a whore on socia media. The fact the officer was so polite and couldn't do anything about it made people furious. Of course, there is real risk of abuse of this law but that's the context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9YMLpiDPWs
Yeah, hopefully this bylaw is only going to be used for extreme cases like these.
Famous last words.
The entire m/o of Montreal cops is to act as bait to raise money from fines.
If they haven't made enough from fines for a particular time window they all start messing with the traffic to get people to drive over reds in frustration, or get pedestrians to cross against the light. I've seen them leave people at intersections for over five minutes trying to do this.
Never seen it taken to such an extremely obvious level anywhere else, along with their bizarrely over the top body armour for what is in reality a very safe place.
Can bet they won’t
Yes, hopefully. Let's check in on our friends at the SPVM and see how they're doing?
https://therover.ca/open-letter-investigate-the-montreal-pol...
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2261943/calls-grow-f...
...oh dear..
It always starts that way so the useful idiots can feel right.
Give it a decade and they'll be using it for everything.
Meh, freedom of speech
It’s a miscarriage of logic, I don’t care how emotional that video is. Laws and rights should be based on logic and reason.
The ones that want this passed will be dead by the time people are like wtf is this archaic law who voted this in
Laws and rights can’t be based on logic and reason alone, starting by the fact that reason alone can’t justify the rationality of its own basis.
And in fact they are never based on logic and reason alone. Everyone has reasons and anything can be framed under some logical system. Admittedly, having a sound logical system is harder and having something like that might seem preferable for the average HN reader. Now, let’s face it, there is not a single juridical corpus that ever met such a high standard of soundness. Really, everyone is free to seek a legal system that can be proved sound on ZFC grounds, good lucks.
That’s just not how it works.
This is a hate speech problem, if there's protection to be put in place it's against misogyny, not against insulting police. Why would policewomen be protected against being called a whore but post office workers wouldn't?
or any other government worker -- rando IT worker at Dept of Transportation should be protected too, non?
That’s sad that there are people ready to throw their low level of self control and rhetorical ability. The officer should be formed and continuously supported (ie. dedicated professional psychological access) to face that kind of reactions.
That’s even sadder that people can’t refrain from supporting such a juridical decision with huge possible side effects in terms of abusive application.
In both cases, that’s some kind of impulsive reactions lacking proper rational counterparts to balance the performed actions. And the second one feels far more problematic at societal level, without dismissing in any way the due empathy for the officer.
I think these are the key sentences in that article (below). This bylaw is probably targeted toward citizens that come in and berate staff because they find out they have an unpaid parking ticket from 2 years ago that they have to pay before renewing their license (for example).
>The new Montreal bylaw would ban insults, harassment, threats, abuse and intimidation, as well as offensive and aggressive behaviour.
>It also includes provisions saying city employees could refuse to provide services to someone who misbehaves. However, the bylaw doesn't define what could be construed as an insult.
> This bylaw is probably targeted toward citizens that come in and berate staff because they find out they have an unpaid parking ticket from 2 years ago that they have to pay before renewing their license (for example).
That's how the (evil) people who support it will construe it. In reality that kind of stuff doesn't really bother employees all that much because it's just part of the job, they knew it going in and everyone agrees those sort of people are out of line.
What bothers employees is when they get heckled for doing (in the course of their job) stuff that just about everyone agrees is wrong, bad, stupid or heavy handed, because most of those employees know deep down they're in the wrong, and having it pointed out and having enough of the public agree with the hecklers in message if not in delivery is a real morale killer. And then your burnt out employees stop giving a shit, do a bad job, get caught on camera enforcing the "you had to lie through your teeth to defend it to begin with" policy in a way that lays bare how f-d up it is. And that's what they're trying to avoid by threatening to fine any peasant who opens their mouth.
Yup. It’s symptomatic of poor governance. Government services not working as good as they should and of course people are pissed. To be frank, the government employees are divas and aren’t effective.
You will find the same behavior across so many different government services — a culture of not taking charge, or like committee thinking. Nothing gets done.
There’s a reason people are pissed.
Idk what the solution is, my brain goes to automated government services, maybe something like Singapore
I don't think it's even that the service that is delivered is unsatisfactory. I think it's that what the government is engaged in actively runs counter to what the people broadly want.
Like when people say we need better sanitation, there's too many tent cities, this needs to be fixed, etc, etc, and the city goes and hires a bunch of employees who then get to work fining residents for trash bin violations no shit they get heckled even if they solve some token amount of the core problem (invariably just enough to let the liars in the comments go to bat for them without the lies being obvious). And you see this kind of thing on damn near every axis of government enforcement and social services these days.
Agreed. It’s so not-Montreal
The city and its people are way cooler than this
Obviously it bothers employees to have to deal with abuse. It's crazy to suggest otherwise, nobody likes being yelled at.
IMO this rule is not good but there is a trade-off being made either way.
> In reality that kind of stuff doesn't really bother employees
Yes it does
>they knew it going in
No. Nor civil employees nor service workers go to work expecting to be abused.
You sound very much like a person who likes to verbally abuse those you deem beneath you
While it's not pleasant angry people who are wrong or unjustified doesn't burn out employees.
Angry people who are right burn out employees.
Nobody likes being a human shield for their employer.
I'm predicting the police will use it to stifle any kind of criticism.
Like: police officer does something racist. Person says "hey, you're racist!". Police officer then gives a $1000 fine to the person for insulting them
I know that speech protections are not exactly maximalist in Canada, but surely this can't be compatible with the charter?
> Other municipalities in the province, including Quebec City, Laval, Longueuil and Sherbrooke, already have similar bylaws.
apparently it can be
the other part about canada is that quebec didnt sign on to the canadian constitution, so its only the quebec charter, which is a law like any other
now thats news to me, I need to look into that
is there appeals to national courts there
edit: after looking into it, this seems embellished and laymen level of legal understanding that I see everywhere. I wanted to believe though! There seems to be no functional difference for Quebec as a province in Canada compared to others, despite some nuance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and...
>The Charter is applicable in Quebec because all provinces are bound by the constitution.
Read section 33 of the charter...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_33_of_the_Canadian_Cha...
That's available to all provinces, so unless quebec invoked it to bypass all clauses of the charter, it's still accurate to say they're subject to it. Otherwise you can say that ontario isn't bound by the constitution either, because they can theoretically invoke that clause.
Canada only enforces the parts of its Charter the current government feels like, and actively does the opposite of its Charter when the current government feels like it.
I predict this will go badly. I would not describe the good people of Montreal as a "compliant" lot. You can't legislate respect.
> However, she said incidents of inappropriate behaviour have increased dramatically and are harming city employees, and making it more difficult to recruit new employees.
> "The thousands of women and men who work every day to serve Montreal have the right to protection from their employer, which is us."
So basically it was pushed through despite being unpopular or unfinished because they have legitimate employment problems in government right now.
There's erosion of trust in the government, and the solution will further erode trust. Unfortunately this is not an exclusive problem to Canada right now.
As western societies have become more authoritarian, governments are resorting to banning even the most minor types of resistance. For example, when going through airport security in the UK and US you will see signs warning that insulting security officers is a criminal offense. As laws become more senseless and needlessly punitive, this is a disappointing development.
Unfortunately, I suspect eventually this strategy of "containment" of dissent will eventually lead to outbursts of violence since less extreme forms of dissent are not tolerated anyway.
> For example, when going through airport security in the UK and US you will see signs warning that insulting security officers is a criminal offense
I had never seen one in US. How is it framed, specifically "insulting", or framed as "non-compliant" or some other way?
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
All over the world, people in power seem to be forgetting this. Unfortunately for us all, it's likely that they'll need a practical reminder before they remember.
I never cease to be grateful for the First Amendment.
And the 2nd amendment to protect the 1st
Is there an extra harsh punishment, if the insults aren't in French?
Quotes from the mayor (in French) who reassures us all that we can still flip off officers, that law will never be abused.
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2026-09-21...
This is likely the consequence of that : https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/montreal-police-mayo...
The police woman is amazingly patient.
There needs to be tit-for-tat fixes to the way the public and police interact.
If we cannot say mean things under extreme duress, then they shouldn't be allowed to lie/mislead to extract evidence. (The inverse is illegal afaik -- to lie to an officer)
This kind of thing is concerning, but I think there is a place for rules like this.
You already see this in many public businesses. Front line workers should not have to endure abuse from the public.
But, the standard for sworn officers should be much higher.
Abusing employees in a business is already banned. Harassment by verbal abuse and you can get criminal penalties if it's serious enough. Threats and false allegations are also illegal. There are existing laws for all the serious cases.
Criminalizing an insult is not the same thing at all. This law could get people fined for saying some cop is racist or even things not aimed at a specific person like wearing a fuck the police shirt. And insults are subjective so it's all up to the prosecutor and judge, who might side with the police by default when the evidence is unclear.
Yeah, I don’t like what the article describes.
It should not be criminalized. The first offense should just be getting kicked out of the DMV office or whatever. If you keep doing it then they should have some way to ban you until you pay a fine, or post a bond or something.
Unpopular distraction, elections are Oct 5th
Reasonable minds can disagree on a citizen’s right to speak freely versus his neighbor’s right to not have their feelings hurt by words, but I can’t fathom a reasonable argument why such a protection should only apply to government workers and the police.
I'm pro people having dignity in their jobs, but considering how unnecessarily complex and sometimes even hostile modern bureaucracy is this is going to remove one feedback mechanism that may have been globally good.
"Giving the middle finger, it's not what will give you a ticket," Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada said before the council meeting."
...
"It also includes provisions saying city employees could refuse to provide services to someone who misbehaves. However, the bylaw doesn't define what could be construed as an insult."
----------------
1. If what constitutes an "insult" is left undefined and up to discretion, then this law will be used as an tool for police to fine and harass anyone they don't like at a given moment. It will be abused.
2. This law also bans things, such as threats, that are already covered by the law. If you threaten police, they already have the tools to arrest and charge you. This should not have been included in a law that covers insults and is likely only there to provide camouflage.
I sincerely doubt this law will stand up to its first test in court.
If they're all into civilized disagreement, why not ban insults against everyone? What makes police and bureaucrats special to merit such exception?
At least we still have a functioning democracy over here. We can still complain about this specific issue if it matters to us.
The chief of Montreal police smells like cheese!
Hostie d'tabarnak, flic.
Note that the US constitutional first amendment "freedom of speech and expression" and the Canadian charter's "freedom of expression" are not the same thing.
The Canadian charter explicitly allows for limits based on the (necessarily) vague concept of what a normal democratic society would consider fine, and what they would consider "how about you sit down, and reflect on what you just said because what the hell is wrong with you". And of course, context matters.
Calling a city worker something unpleasant because they refuse to issue a marriage license because of their personal beliefs is not the same as laying into someone because they're slow at their job, and berating a cop for punching a kid during an arrest is nothing like making sailors blush by yelling at a parking cop who's writing you a ticket because it's a minute past what you paid for.
Will some folks try to get fines issued as an obvious overreach? Yep. And that's what courts are for.
It's pretty interesting how many comments ask questions that were asked by the article. Not surprising, as I also didn't read the article before reading the comments. But it is a well-written news article.